The Merge
by A Hermione H
Summary: Ellie expected her year to be normal. Turns out that when your school merges with another one, everything turns out... well, interesting. With a battle with Nyx on the horizon for the demigods and a few twists and turns along the way. It would suffice to say that Ellie and death became quickly acquainted throughout this school year.
1. Ellie I

**Hey guys, this is actually quite a complicated story. So at first it's a really cliché and annoying Annabeth goes to Goode-style fic, but gradually throughout the fic it gets more twisted and dark (be prepared for the plot twists. This can be explained by the fact that I started writing this two years ago and let my friend read it. She very quickly became my co-writer. As she had not read fanfiction at the time, she didn't know all of the clichés. Plus she thought that it was boring, so pretty much threw the whole story off the rails of the typical cliché fic. And then it sort of continued.). Another thing you need to know - this is a pre-written fic, so updates should be fairly regular, but I probably won't be able to incorporate suggestions. The netire thing is about 80k words so your in for a long haul.**

 **\- AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

 **If I owned this, would Rick Riordan be smiling because he has our souls?**

 **This story starts just before SoN and the main part is after BoO**

Elizabeth Myers POV

"Why do you think Principal Bryant has called us to assembly?" I whispered to my best friend Annabeth Chase. She flicked her blonde hair away from her eyes. "I don't know. Must be pretty serious though." I nodded in agreement.

"Students, I would like to inform of some grave and serious news."

The hall filled with whispers of speculation as to what Principal Bryant was talking about. Annabeth nudged me. "Told you."

"SILENCE! As I was saying, we are running out of money due to the size and selectiveness of our school. But the local city council have offered us the opportunity to merge with a local high-achieving high school. We have picked our partner school to be Goode High School. A co-ed highly academic school that was just perfect for our merge. Now one of their teachers, Mr Blofis, will now be speaking to you."

A man that looked around forty, or so, stood up to the microphone. "As Ms Bryant mentioned, I am Mr Blofis, an English teacher at Goode and I am happy to say that these premises will still be used and that the seniors and juniors will go to school on these premises, while freshmen and sophomores will go to school on the Goode High School premises." His soft brown eyes were constantly scanning the crowd… that was until he saw my best friend, Annabeth. They widened when they saw her; I couldn't see what my friend's eyes were conveying, but I assumed that it was something good or relieving, because soon the teacher's expression was back to being relaxed. "I'm very much looking forward to teaching all of you and hope you have a great time learning in the Goode High - Court House Partnership!"

"Thank you Mr Blofis for that delightful speech!" Principal Bryant was back at the stand now. "These changes will be in place from the start of next year. I would also like to say I hope you all have a good summer, because this is the last time we will be together as a whole school before the end of the year. Thank You Students!

The next week passed quickly with Annabeth muttering under breath often about _Leo_ , _Percy_ , and _Stupid camp, where the Hades is it?_ I had no enlightenment to the subject of these mutterings. I have to admit my best friend was weird, she disappeared a lot during school time; but apparently she cleared it all with Miss Gardner, a teacher who seemed to come from the same place as her. Wherever that was. She said she had family issues. I have to say she had a lot of those. Miss Gardner insisted that she had a big extended family, but I could never understand how he knew. I mean, unless she was family? But they looked completely different, and although I knew extended families could look different but not _that_ different.

Now a word about Annabeth before we get into this whole story. Annabeth, in looks, was what boys would call _hot_. She had honey blonde hair that was curly like that British actress who played Cinderella… What's her name? Ah, yes. Lily James. Annabeth had startling grey eyes like clouds on a rainy day. She was lean with a tan that was definitely natural to boot, but she never seemed to take part in any sports. But don't judge her by her hair; Annabeth was the smartest girl in the school, smarter than even Samantha Lee, a senior going to Harvard. Her eyes were constantly analysing the surroundings; determining who was friend or foe. She had two younger half brothers on her dad's side and a half brother on her mom's side called Malcolm, who had picked her up a few times.

Anyway she always mentions this summer camp, but always says I can't go because I'm not ADHD and dyslexic. Don't ask.

o0O0o

 _Time Skip to post-BoO_

In September, I was one of the first students back on campus. I ran to the office to find out my dorm assignment this year and I was glad to know that I was with Annabeth again. I was also with a 'Hazel Levesque' and a, I gasped when I saw the name 'Piper _McLean_ ' surely she wasn't related to Tristan McLean? Was she?

I entered the dorm room, hoping that I would be the first one; but no, lo and behold Annabeth, Hazel and Piper were sitting on their beds laughing about something to do with a boy called Frank. "And Percy was just staring at Frank, waiting for him to do it. And Frank's face when he realised what we wanted him to do was just priceless!" The girl with the cinnamon coloured hair rested her head against the Native American's shoulder. "I miss that big, fuzzy panda man."

I cleared my throat. "Who's Frank?"

"Oh, Hi Ellie!" Annabeth waved, beckoning Hazel and Piper to come over. "These are Piper and Hazel. They're from my summer camp." Oh, the summer camp I'm not allowed to go to.

"So, did you guys go to Goode?"

"No. Actually it's my first time in New York. I used to live in LA though." Hazel smiled as if this was an inside joke. I looked at Piper expectantly. "I didn't go to Goode, I was also living with my dad in LA." I looked at her in feigned curiosity, I'd figured out by then that she was Tristan McLean's daughter but I decided to let her tell me, if she wanted to, that is. "So, do you know anyone at Goode?"

"Um, we know one dude…" Piper looked at the other two. "Do we know anyone other than Percy?" The other two shook their heads. "So we know one person, unless anyone else transfers."

"So…" I was grasping for a subject. "How was your summer?"


	2. Danny I

**Have fun with this second chapter and this second OC.**

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Daniel Robinson POV

"Dammit Valdez! Really! You trick both camps into believing you're dead and then you come to my school!" I stared at my best friend as he started talking to himself. I mean I don't know what had happened to make him act like this, all we did was walk into the school grounds get dorm assignments, as the school had now merged with this selective girls boarding school. On the list it said we were rooming with a Peter Bradley and a Leo Valdez; and then Percy started muttering to himself. I mean, I was glad to have him back after he disappeared for 8 months but he now seemed on the crazy and sad side of life.

"Who's Leo Valdez?"

"A guy from summer camp who managed to convince literally everyone that he was dead."

"Oh, I can see why you're mad now."

Percy groaned. "And now I have to room with him without getting angry. Then my cousin's going to get angry, because his best friend didn't tell him that he is no longer dead."

"Big problem."

"Yep."

We made our way through the corridors, getting lost every 2-5 minutes. After half an hour of painstaking searching we finally found our dorm room. A curly-boy was sitting on one bed nervously fiddling with a piece of metal and some screws. He had a look of anxiety and fear on his face. He stood up when Percy and I entered the room. "Hey Perce. Look it's not my fault, I didn't have any way of contacting you. Then Calypso got a great idea of 'Let's travel the world for a bit!' and then after a month of travelling she decided that I needed to go to a proper school, not like the one I went to last year."

Percy put his hands up. "Wait. You found Calypso?"

"Yeah, that thing I got in Bologna really worked." Percy seemed impressed, obviously this Calypso person had been missing for a long time. "And I was exploring and you'll never guess who's names were written! Hazel's and Piper's and Annabeth's!"

"Annabeth went to Court House?" Percy laid his head in his hands.

"Apparently so." Leo smirked at the swim captain, as if mocking him. "At least now everyone will believe you have a girlfriend."

I decided to butt in here. "So the all-famous Goode swim captain has a girlfriend?"

Leo turned to me now. "Dude, he has the atomic bomb of girlfriends."

Percy glared at Leo warningly. "Don't let Calypso hear you say that, she's already annoyed because I left for Annabeth. She'll think you're trying to make a move on Annabeth and abandon her like Drake and I did."

Leo rolled his eyes at Percy. "Yeah, but Annabeth hasn't liked me since I fell off the Grand Canyon."

I stared at this guy in disbelief. "You fell off the Grand Canyon?"

"Yeah, our friend Piper did too. Piper's also coming here, she got sick of having to go to her dad's movie premieres."

"Who's her dad? Tristan McLean?" I was joking about the last part, but the other two boys looked at me nodding sombrely. "Seriously, you're friends with Tristan McLean's daughter?"

Leo coughed. "Best friends."

"Not anymore Repair Boy. Annabeth replaced you."

"NO! Leo Valdez cannot be replaced! Anyway I thought Annabeth was your best friend."

"No Valdez, she's my girlfriend."

An awkward silence settled in the room. I frantically searched for a topic of conversation. "So… How was your summer, you know apart from thinking Leo was dead."

 **We hope you enjoyed it, tune in for another installment in like two days**

 **-AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	3. Ellie II

**Hey guys! After a guides trip and StormSunfire not knowing the login details, we're back with another two chapters of The Merge. Once again, this is extremely cheesy and does get better, so please keep reading!**

 **We're also sorry if we screw around with the American school system. We're British!**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

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Ellie POV

"It was… interesting." Piper grimaced before saying the final word, as if plucking them from the air along with a bunch of adjectives that weren't so pleasant. "Very interesting… Our camp went to Rome and Greece and…"

"Croatia," Hazel supplied helpfully.

"And then Hazel's great grandmother was waiting to meet us in Athens at the Parthenon," Annabeth added.

"And then Annabeth's boyfriend got a nosebleed," Piper chipped in.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Seaweed Brain!" She tucked her streak of grey hair behind her ear, giving a tight smile. Wait, streak of grey hair? I swear that faded during sophomore year?

"I see your grey streak came back."

Annabeth's mood darkened and the other two girls looked at her in worry. "Yeah, Annabeth and her boyfriend went through some really tough things over the summer."

"What, did they break up or something?" Hazel shook her head behind Annabeth, who was turning paler by the second. _Much worse_ , Hazel mouthed.

"Did you know that they're having a dance to break the ice between the two schools on Friday." Piper elbowed Annabeth, grinning. "At least you've got a date, Annabeth, our boyfriends are back at the _Principia_ working on Camp J."

Hazel clicked her tongue. "Pipes, your mom is showing in you."

Piper then cursed under her breath in, was that Greek? "Sorry, my mom's really into matchmaking, and she always talks about it. As much as I hate it, it rubs off on me and my siblings. They love it. I do not."

"How many siblings do you have?" Piper stared at her hands and started counting on her fingers. "Mitchell, Lacy, Drew, Michael, Anna, Lila," she mumbled a string of names under her breath. "She looked up finally, "Eleven." My eyes must have bulged.

"Eleven?" Piper nodded slowly, holding up her hands. .

"Yeah, eleven half-siblings."

"I thought there were more." Annabeth stared at Piper.

The Native American bit her lip before nodding to herself. "You're including Zach and Silena."

"Ah, that's why I got thirteen."

It was now my turn to stare at Piper in shock. "Are Silena and Zach your siblings? If so, why didn't you count them?"

"Um… Silena and Zach died in a car crash a few years ago. They weren't close to me or anything, though." Annabeth sniffed slightly in sadness and I couldn't help but take notice of the tear rolling down her cheek.

"Then why is Annabeth wiping away a tear?"

"Annabeth went to summer camp with my siblings long before I knew my mom, so she was really close to Silena, like Silena was a better sister to her than to my siblings."

"Oh. Hazel, do you have any siblings?"

"Yeah, I have a half-brother called Nico."

"Do you see him often?"

"Kinda. Depends on what he's doing."

"What's he usually doing?"

"Being tutored by someone, he's very mature for a thirteen year-old, but he can't read or write; so he's tutored."

"Poor thing." I frowned. "He can't read or write, why?"

"Um… He-" Hazel was cut off by a boy tumbling through the door. "Leo?"

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 **Thanks for reading! We hope you enjoyed it!**


	4. Danny II

**And here's the next chapter.**

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Danny POV

"It was very interesting, I finally got to meet my great grandmother while we were in Greece. I hung out with my girlfriend and cousins. Got to meet Leo here, who's my cousin's best friend. Oh, and my psycho aunt kidnapped me."

"When were you kidnapped?"

"Last Christmas, that was why I didn't come back to school. My mom, dad and step-dad didn't know where I was. That was until my cousin Jason came to our camp with short term amnesia."

"Why did she kidnap you?"

"I don't know, but I don't really like to talk about this summer." I nodded understandingly, in the past when Percy has said he doesn't want to talk about something and he's been pressured into doing it, someone has ended up in the ER and Percy was crying and having fits. It was a good idea to avoid those. "So do you know anyone other than Piper, Annabeth and Hazel?"

"I don't thin-"

A boy opened the door hurriedly. "Sorry I'm late Reyna!" The boy seemed to be on autopilot and his words were probably part of that autopilot. This was confirmed after he clamped a hand to his mouth."Sorry, I went to a summer camp over the summer and I was constantly late. So I had to apologize to my camp counsellor Reyna."

"Wait," Percy held up his hands. "Reyna? Do you go to Camp J?"

"Yeah, why? Wait. You're that greek guy! I knew the name Percy Jackson rang a bell."

"Yes, yes. I'm the guy that worked alongside Reyna over the summer. Can I just ask, how's she getting along with teaching Frank?"

"He's getting there, but he's quite incompetent compared to you and Jason."

"But is he better than Octavian would have been?"

"Yes, definitely!" This was my turn to put my hands up.

"So both of you know Percy?" They both nodded. "So we all have a mutual friend in Percy?" They nodded again. "And I'm guessing you both have dyslexia and ADHD?" Leo nodded, while Peter shook his head. "I'm only ADHD."

"Okay, just getting everything straight here. Now let's get to know each other. So you know, name, nationality, interesting facts."

"Fine, I'm Leo. I fell off the grand canyon, my mom's dead and I'm half Greek, half Spanish. Oh, and I kinda blew up half of the place where Peter lives and where Percy was living at the time."

Peter's face lit up in wonder. He launched an avalanche of questions at Leo, as his eyes gleamed. I sat there, confused by the sight of the three of them knowing each other.

"Oh, you're that dude! Is it true you tried to make Octavian wear a paper hat while you were showing him your ship?" Leo smirked at Peter, "True as the fact that I blew up New Rome."

"Awesome! Anyway, I'm Peter, I'm Italian and I like ...fencing. Yeah, fencing and archery, and I'm thinking of becoming a medic or nurse." He reminded me of one of Percy's friends, Will, who also had blond hair, and was studying to become a doctor. A thought clearly jumped into my friend's head. "Wait, you're related to Octavian, aren't you? Legacy, also?" Peter groaned into his hands.

"Don't remind me. Same cohort and everything."

"Jeez, I'd hate that!" Leo interrupted their conversation. "Anyway, introduce yourself Daniel."

"I'm Danny, I've been one of Percy's best friends since we started Goode in freshman year, I'm plain old American and I enjoy playing basketball and watching Percy here sass everyone when they insult him or say he doesn't have a girlfriend."

Peter's eyebrows furrowed. "Wait, wasn't that the girl who judo-flipped you when she arrived at camp with Leo?"

Percy gave Peter an eye roll. "Duh, do you think I would have let her judo-flip me if she wasn't?"

This is getting ridiculous, I mean I've been Percy's friend for three years and not once have I met Annabelle(?)!

"Why does everyone know this girlfriend except for me?"

"Because she and Percy are legends at both summer camps!"

"But still… What does she look like?" I aimed a look at Peter.

"She's blonde and that's all I could see while she was judo-flipping Percy."

Leo held up his hands. "Whatever Percy says is true! If my girlfriend hears me talking about Annabeth being pretty, I'm dead."

"Why?" Peter and I enquired at the same time.

"Because she had this massive crush on Percy when we were 14, but then Percy told her about Annabeth and she just let him go. But she still holds it against him." Percy paled at the mention of Leo's girlfriend's grudge; that only happens when he's about to have a fit. "O-kay, everyone move away from the Aquaman. Oh, and Peter please can you tell them he's out of _there_. I'm off to find someone that will cheer him up." And at that he ran off down the corridor.

 **Thanks! See you in about two more days for the next installment. We're just about to finish pre-writing the entire thing, so updates should come quick and fast. There are about 60 chapters or so already written.**

 **\- AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	5. Ellie III

**And we are back with another chapter! We'd love to thank everyone that has favourited and followed. We'd also like to thank the reviewer we've had. It's great to hear that you like the story, and other reviews are always appreciated: questions about the plot (it is very convoluted, we know), just saying you like it or some constructive criticism about the grammar (we tried to correct it, but some might still be a bit on the dodgy side). We'd like to say that the story really kicks off from here, but it doesn't quite yet so that would be a lie. We will try to keep updating fairly regularly, though.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

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Ellie POV

The other girls in my dormitory were staring at the scrawny kid that had literally rolled through the door. "You're alive?" Hazel looked like she was going start sobbing uncontrollably and Annabeth looked like she was going to punch something, or him. Probably him.

Leo grinned at Annabeth's expression. "Percy had that look on his face earlier; I'll explain later. But it's Percy that I'm coming about now - flashback!"

I stared at him in confusion - who just randomly yells 'flashback'? - I looked around, hoping to see other confused faces, but all I saw was Annabeth pulling on her sneakers.

"I'll be back in a bit, Ellie. Just ask Hazel and Piper about um… How we know Leo. Yeah, okay?" Then she ran out of the room with Leo hot on her heels.

I turned to Hazel. "So, _how_ do you know Leo?"

"Family friends for over 70 years."

I stared at Hazel in shock. "Your families have known each other for that long?" I whistled in appreciation.

"Yeah, and then he showed up at summer camp with Piper and Annabeth. You can tell I was kinda shocked. Then he almost died when we went to Greece, then everyone thought he died on Long Island over the summer. Once again, kinda shocked he's alive." She stared down at her purple T-Shirt, smothering out the wrinkles. "Now I'm pretty sure he's sharing a room with Annabeth's boyfriend Percy."

I grimaced. "This is going to be one awkward year."

"Agreed." Piper crossed her arms tightly across her chest. Leo used to be my best friend and then he disappeared. I'm resisting the urge to go to the kitchen, get a knife, then stab him." Piper gritted her teeth in fury, her eyes glinting. "Damn Repair Boy."

I looked at her. "Did you just call your best friend a repair boy?"

"Yes. Oh, right." She tucked one of her braids behind an ear. "It's an inside joke because he likes mechanics and fixing stuff." Her persona suddenly changed as she laughed.

I feigned a giggle. But seriously, who jokes about their friend being a repair boy?

Piper held up a hand. "Hang on. Hazel, doesn't Percy have an inside joke about dams?"

"Yeah he went to Hoover dam with Thalia, Bianca and Rachel when he was 13."

"Oh, yeah. Thanks, Hazel. Sorry, the entire sentence was an inside joke." She smiled sweetly, but when I looked into her eyes I saw that something was hidden. Something big was hidden, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't the fact that her dad was a movie star.


	6. Danny III

Danny POV

When Leo came in dragging a hot blonde behind him, I was shocked. _This_ was Percy's girlfriend?

She stared at Percy, then at Leo. "What did you say? He only gets this bad when it's _arai_."

"I might have mentioned Calypso…" Leo's voice sounded quiet and meek for the first time since I met him.

" _Vlacas_. You know how he gets when you mention Calypso and her grudge. Actually you don't, do you?" She paled visibly. "Hot head," she muttered, before quickly rushing over to Percy and hugging him. "We're out of there. We're safe. You said hello. No one hates you. Bob and Damasen don't hate you. I'm here, not there."

Peter sucked in his breath, while I just took in the scene, confused. Though Leo seemed used to this, he was tense, with a nervous expression on his face.

The colour flooded back into Percy's face, as Peter whispered to Leo. "It was _those_ two?"

Leo nodded. "You have no idea how hard it was to watch them go."

Percy got off his bed while his girlfriend (What's her name?) moved away, smiling, with tears in her eyes. "Thanks, Annabeth." - That's it - "Gods help me if I do this every time Leo mentions Calypso."

I frowned at the wording. "Dude, I've been meaning to ask you for a while. Why do you say gods, instead of God?"

Percy shifted uneasily in his seat. "Right… I thought you knew I believed in the Greek gods, so I say gods instead of God. I'm - what's the word Annabeth?"

"Hellenistic?"

"That's it. I'm Hellenistic." Percy sighed at me, "I swear I've explained this before that I'm H-E-"

"Percy I'd recommend not going any further with that spelling, otherwise you will just make a fool of yourself," Annabeth cut in, smiling.

"Says you who failed to spell a word you'd known since you were seven!" Percy stuck his tongue out at Annabeth.

"I was thirteen!"

I frowned again, nodding in her direction. "You were thirteen and struggling to spell a word you've known since you were seven?"

"Dyslexia."

I nodded; of course, she went to the same camp as Percy - so she must be dyslexic. _Stupid, stupid!_ "So, will I be seeing you often?"

"Um… I don't know how many lessons I will have with you guys. Wait, sorry, what are your names?" She smiled at me and Peter apologetically.

"Daniel Robinson."

"Peter Bradley; I saw your judo-flip at the beginning of the summer."

There was a look of confusion on her face; then it quickly passed. "Oh, you know Reyna, then. Say hi for me and also, were you related to Octavian?"

Peter groaned.

"I'll take that as a yes then."

Why did everyone know this Reyna, and this Octavian?

"I hate him," Peter sighed, "he was my cohort leader and was fricking evil."

Annabeth grinned at him jokingly, before grimacing. "Well, I better go and finish unpacking then. Nice meeting you, Danny, Peter." She froze in the doorway. "I would have done this earlier, but it didn't seem like the time, so…" She ran towards Leo as if going to hug him. Leo took a step back. Then she flipped him over her shoulder.

"Two down, four to go!" Percy announced.

"What?"

"How many people she's judo-flipped from our road trip over the summer."

"She's judo-flipped a third of you?"

"Yep. Let me give you a hand, Leo." Annabeth pulled Leo off the floor (it's up to you whether he gets onto his feet or not, let's just say that there was a cry of "OW!" when Annabeth did pull him off the floor).

Leo rubbed his shoulder. "Why'd you do that?"

"You disappeared on us when we needed you! Camp was in ruins and you're our best mechanic. Jason was crying for four days straight because of your disappearance; you're just lucky that _he_ didn't come here as well." She brushed her hands on her jumper and left the room. I knew the first question I was going to ask.

"Does she always judo flip people?" The other three burst out laughing, as I stared at them blankly. "Guys? Guys? It was a serious question!"

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 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	7. Ellie IV

**And we are back with another two chapters. These really aren't great, but the story line actually starts within these so have fun figuring out the (really obvious) plotline.**

 **We'd also like to apologise about how similar all of the OCs are.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

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Ellie POV

"Hi, I'm back. Sorry about that, I just needed to help Leo with something important." I noticed she was looking directly at me when saying this. "By the way, I flipped him once I'd finished."

Hazel burst out laughing. "He wasn't expecting that!"

Piper was also holding her stomach. "He probably was, but let Annabeth flip him to get the gruelling over with."

"Wait, flip. Like judo flip?" I blinked in shock. Annabeth Chase, the least athletic person in our year, judo flips people? But then again where does she get those leg muscles from if she doesn't work out in some way?

"Yeah, isn't Annabeth like athletic or at least sporty at school?" Piper looked at me in shock. "She isn't, is she? Annabeth, why?"

Hold up, what?

"Didn't want to draw attention to myself." The girl mumbled, "Gods, if I'd realised you'd be going here as well Piper and interrogating me about my love and school life, I might not have come back," she joked. "I mean I could always go back to Camp and help rebuild it."

"Wait, you need to rebuild your summer camp?"

The three nodded; Annabeth leaned forwards on her elbows. "Earthquakes and hurricanes wreaked havoc on it during the summer."

"You really did have a bad summer then."

"You have no idea, I broke my ankle. Lost my boyfriend. Found my boyfriend, then lost him again. It was hectic, I can say that."

"How did you lose your boyfriend?" I asked incredulously, I mean, how can you lose a boy?

"Our psycho aunt kidnapped him and our other cousin, who's Piper's boyfriend," Hazel piped up.

"Hold on. Our?"

"Yeah, I'm Percy's cousin." She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. I know you're thinking I don't look like the pictures of him. I got more of my mum's side, than my dad's. Percy got all of Uncle P's looks. But I can't be envious of him; she put him in a coma for six months, then sent him to Jason's summer camp with short term amnesia."

"Jason?" I raised my eyebrows questioningly; who the heck was he?

"Piper's boyfriend, also known as Percy and Hazel's cousin. Wait, I'll show you a picture of the nine of us. It's like the only picture I've got of Hazel's brother, Nico." Annabeth fished through her bag, shuffling a lot of stuff. She pulled out a crumpled piece of photographic paper that showed ten people. I could identify Piper, Hazel and Annabeth, but couldn't find anyone I knew after them. "That's Percy," she said, pointing to a handsome boy with windswept black hair and sea green eyes; I don't mean like green or blue, but literally in between the two colours. "That's Jason." Jason was a tall boy with close-cropped blond hair and electric blue eyes. Seriously, did everyone they knew have weird eyes? Piper's were kaleidoscopic, Hazel's were a weird gold colour and Annabeth's were stormy grey! "That's Frank, Hazel's boyfriend." She pointed to a bulky Asian kid. "Nico, Hazel's brother." This was a gaunt boy, with pitch black hair and dark brown eyes. "Will, my cousin." This was a guy who looked a bit like Jason, but less muscular and his eyes were a softer shade of blue. "And Reyna, the head of the summer camp that Hazel's psycho aunt sent Percy to." This girl had obsidian black eyes and straight black hair done in a braid. At that moment I realised that every single one of them had a smile plastered on their face for the picture, but in their eyes there was uncontrollable sadness. "Oh, and if you were wondering where Leo is, this was taken when we thought he had died."

Annabeth looked over her wrist towards me, then doubled back to her watch. She then cursed. "It's six-thirty! Dinner, we're late for dinner!"

I stared at her watch in shock. "Damn." I grabbed my sneakers and pulled them on; I noticed Hazel and Piper doing the same.

Annabeth was just waiting by the door to leave, having kept her sneakers on after leaving the room. "Ready? Good."

We ran down the stairs towards the dining room, knowing that we were supposed to be in the dining hall by now. Hazel and Piper started going down a corridor to our left, while Annabeth and I went down on the right. "Oi! You two! It's down here!"

As we ran through the corridors I realised something; how are they going to fit 400 kids into the dining room? I voiced my concerns to Annabeth, who replied, "You know how the staff had to dining rooms next to the student one? They've converted one of them into a dining hall for seniors."

I nodded in understanding, then beckoned Hazel and Piper towards the dining room; luckily we weren't the only ones that were late. In fact, the room was almost empty, with only a couple dozen in there. "Oh, good, we're not late," Hazel said optimistically. There was something off about Hazel, but I couldn't place my finger on it. She seemed a bit old fashioned; the gestures she used, the way she spoke. But Hazel dressed in a modern way and it wasn't like she freaked out at the sight of a computer or phone. We each grabbed a tray of food from the canteen counter and sat down at a table on the far side of the room.

Then they walked in. A group of five girls who I most certainly did not recognise. Except for one. Renee Lindsay-Jones. The meanest girl to ever walk the corridors of Court House. Renee was in the centre of the formation, her blonde hair curled to perfection and her green skirt colour coordinated with her shamrock covered crop top. The girl on her right had bright red hair that was obviously dyed, wearing a pair of heels that boosted her from 5'0" to 5'6". The girl on the right of the redhead had an Asian complexion, with dark brown hair cascading down her back in ringlets. She had a look on her face that said 'Cross me and you'll regret it. But until then I'm available'. On the left of Renee was a black haired girl with pale blue eyes and porcelain skin like a china doll. And on the left of the china doll was an African-American girl who had her long dark hair braided with red threads.

After about 10 minutes of enjoying our chicken nuggets, a group of boys came in. I recognized Leo and Percy from Annabeth's picture, and then there were two boys with first one had brown hair and bright bottle green eyes and the other one had sun kissed blond hair and was quite short compared to the started heading towards our table; Hazel's golden eyes flashed when she saw the blond boy.

"Percy, why are you going to the nerd table? We were just talking to Renee and apparently those are the two biggest nerds in Court House." The redhead started walking towards Percy with her hand on her hip.

"Anastasia, I'm going over there because my friends and I know the 'two biggest nerds in Court House'. Actually, one of them is my girlfriend." At that he strode over to the table where we were sitting. "Hey guys. Piper, Hazel, how are you?"

There was a chorus of "Good."

Then he turned to me. "I assume you're Ellie. Anna's told me a lot about you." Upon receiving a glare from Annabeth, he corrected himself. "Annabeth has told me a lot about you. Guys, this is Peter and this is Danny."

Peter was the one that Hazel was glaring at; he himself seemed shocked that she was here. "I know who Peter is, thank you very much. He was one of the people playing mythomagic during war games in the fort." War games?

"Look Hazel, I wasn't up near the top. Heck, I wasn't even a centurion. I had no control over Octavian!"

"I don't care, you were his brother! Surely he would have listened to you?"

"Did you meet Octavian? Who the hell would he listen to? He wouldn't even listen to our grandfather, for the sake of the gods." Funny, he does it too.

Leo thrust out his hands. "Wait, you and Octavian are brothers? _Dude_ , you only said that you were related."

Peter sent him a pointed look. "Would you admit to being his brother if he was _your_ brother?"

Leo lifted a fry in the blond's direction. "You make a good point, Peter."

Then Danny put his hands up. "Who is this Octavian dude?" Thank you, someone finally asked the question!


	8. Danny IV

Danny POV

I was sick of all of this referencing to people and things I don't know. I mean who was Octavian? What was Camp J? Then when I saw the girl, Ellie, and realised I wasn't the only one feeling like that, I finally asked the question aloud.

"Um… Octavian was the guy at summer camp and he was like power hungry and wanted to be a camp counselor because there are votes for those, but he didn't get to be counselor so he burnt down a cabin. Peter here is his brother." Okay, I got that answer.

"So what's Camp J?"

Hazel was the one to answer."It's the summer camp that Peter and I go to. It was like a rival camp with Percy and Annabeth's, but then the psycho aunt swooped in and swapped stuff and now we all are friends." She smiled a big cheesy grin that I honestly hoped was fake. It was scary, like scarier than the bogeyman when I was three.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve as I finished up my chicken nuggets. A sudden wave of drowsiness came over me."Well I better get back up to the dorm. See you tomorrow?" And then I walked up to the room.

I slumped down upon my bed, not even caring to get changed. I immediately regretted falling asleep. I saw a large humanoid creature standing in front of me. His face was literally a black hole sucking in everything around me. I felt my legs and mouth move as I turned to a blonde girl. Then my body turned around against my will and I started running towards an elevator. My head turned to a large man who was covered in silver. He was holding a broom in one hand and had a cat on the other. then I heard the only words in that silent dream: "Say hello to the stars for me." The man put his finger on the button to open the elevator.

I ran inside, then felt my dream self promptly collapse. My dream flashed forward to me standing on a ship's deck that was flying through the sky. "Bob says hello."

I woke up as the dream faded away into nothing. The memory was starting to become fuzzy, but there was one thing I was positive of. The blonde girl was Annabeth and the voice that I spoke in as the boat sailed away was Percy's. The dream was too vivid to be just a dream, and I'd never seen Bob before; they always said that you could only dream of people you've seen. I knew what I was going to ask Perce when he woke up, it's just how he would react that I wasn't sure of. I grabbed my cell phone and looked at the time: 3.42.

I turned over and went back to sleep. I had a feeling that there were going to be either tears or punching tomorrow.

"Danny? Daniel? Daniel Robinson?"

"I'm not awake right now, please leave a message after the beep."

Percy pulled off my covers and stared down at me. "Dude, it's the first day of school, and we have gym first period. If you sleep anymore you won't be able to find out when tryouts are."

"Tryouts, like swim team?"

"No, the soccer team dummy. Of course the swim team." I shot out of bed like ten times the speed of a rocket. Percy stared down at my clothes. "Also, dude, why are you still dressed?"

"Um… I got really tired last night and just kinda fell asleep as soon as we got to the room. By the way Percy I was just wondering if you knew a guy called Bob."

Percy's face darkened, his eyes becoming a bluey-grey as his discomfort became obvious. "Yeah, I knew him. He had long term amnesia and eventually his memory came back before he died. He knew his own name but still wanted to be called Bob. He didn't pull me in front of him and go 'SACRIFICE!' when he realised that I was the one who accidentally caused his amnesia. He died for me." Then Percy started crying; I knew that would happen.

"Gods. I thought this would happen after you said the name Bob. By the way how do you know the name Bob?" Leo looked at me in interest.

"Um… I had a dream?" The end came out as a question.

Peter then also started eyeballing me. "A dream?"

"Yeah." I rubbed the back of my neck.

They turned to each other and started talking to each other in mismatched languages as if they understood each other, but couldn't speak the same language. Finally the conversation finished and Peter span around to face me. "Do you have ADHD or dyslexia?"

"He doesn't." Percy had come out of his fit and was sitting upright again. "Trust me, I've asked, and that rules everything out. And the only reason Frank doesn't is because he has everything else going on with him and his dad."

What? How can family problems mean you don't have dyslexia or ADHD? Another thing I'm going to need to ask Percy _if_ he ever lets me in on the big secret.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **It's now our Easter holidays, which means we will either update a lot or not at all. Though we will hopefully get a bit of writing time to finish the fic. The end is looming over 80, 000 words after the end of this chapter, but StormSunfire is insisting on keeping it going. Let's just face it, your in for the long haul y'all (do people even say y'all in real life? Can you put it down in the reviews so that I can discover whether my conceptions about America are at all real?)**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire, who are busy fangirling over Beauty and the Beast.**


	9. Ellie V

**Hey! As I said, we didn't update at all in the holidays (What a surprise!), so now we're back with double the amount of chapters that we normally have. Just so you know, our exam season is coming up soon and updates may get less frequent, especially with school trips and stuff.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

Ellie POV

I finally got my answer to _that_ question, then, but it seemed like only me and Danny didn't know this big secret, even though it seemed that Annabeth and Piper only met him today. I watched as Danny walked away towards his dorm. I couldn't place my finger on it, but there was something about all of them that was oddly _powerful_ , and I had a feeling that it had something to do with their mysterious camp.

Camp seemed to be the thing that related all of them. It was always 'camp this' and 'camp that'. This is a friend from camp, who's also my boyfriend's cousin. They all seemed to be somehow related to Annabeth and her boyfriend Percy. Hazel was Percy's cousin. Leo was Annabeth's cousin. Piper is Percy's cousin's girlfriend. Peter seemed to be related to a guy called Octavian (who nobody liked). They seemed to be one big happy family… with PTSD and lots of dyslexia. Lots.

"Ellie, are you coming up to the room?" I'd been completely in my own world; I hadn't noticed that the other three girls had risen from the table and were getting ready to go upstairs. "Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking."

"Sorry?" Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows at me. "Why should you be sorry for thinking?"

"Oh, um. Right." I put my knife and fork together, then quickly ran after my roommates.

o0O0o

That night I had a dream. Correction: that should be nightmare.

A man with silver hair was mouthing a bunch of words that I couldn't make out, until I heard it: "Say hello to the stars for me." And then it was silent. I felt myself run towards an elevator, then saw a spanner fly towards the up button; it was thrown by the silver dude.

The ground around us was red, almost as if it was the body of a very large person. Monsters hounded us, as me and a tall, dark haired boy tried to get into the elevator. We fell in as the doors closed and the music to 'Staying Alive' played; that was not really not helpful. It felt like I was about to die. The elevator took eternity, but it gave me time to inspect the boy lying next to me.

He had long black hair that was sticky with blood. He was tall and well built - but not in a creepy way like a muscle man. His tan was perfect and even; it was obviously from spending a lot of time outside. He had a Mediterranean complexion that would have still been prominent without the tan. His t-shirt was ripped and tattered, revealing his chest. On his left forearm was a brand of some sort: it said 'SPQR', then there was a picture of a trident and finally one stripe that looked the beginning of a barcode. But the most notable thing about him wasn't the tattoo, wasn't the muscles; but his eyes. His eyes were a sparkling blue like the colour of the sea. They had a shattered effect, that I had a feeling wasn't there before we came to wherever we were.

The elevator came to a stop and there we could see four figures. A tall humanoid figure of pure darkness, a woman who looked like she belonged in a museum about Ancient Greece (in style of course, not in age), a scrawny dude who had curly hair and his hand seemed to be on fire, and finally a small girl who had cinnamon-coloured hair and gold eyes. I knew who two of these people were, and it worried me that they were in this dream…

Then something cold hit me. My eyes snapped open and Annabeth was above me, holding an empty bucket.

"Annie! I'm going to kill you!" My bed was soaked with ice cold water.

"Eh, people have tried; they haven't though."

I pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and chased my best friend around the room. I froze, realising what I had just seen. Hazel, Leo and Percy running away from a painful death- and then I remembered that the hair I had in that dream was blonde and grey. Not my usual bright red.

Oh, shoot.

I was in Annabeth's body. The thing I experienced last night couldn't have happened very recently.

Because Percy wasn't that skinny anymore; you couldn't count all of his ribs without focusing hard. Because Annabeth's golden and steely hair wasn't caked in blood and dirt. It was clean and glossy. Her eyes showed an aura of calm, though they were still slightly shattered.

There was one thing I had to ask Percy when I saw him next. If he had a tattoo on his left forearm.


	10. Danny V

Danny POV

After breakfast we met up with the girls we sat with yesterday, as Leo, Percy and Peter, sort of, seemed comfortable with them. "Hey, Ellie, Hazel, Annabeth, Piper."

"Percy, do you have a tattoo?" The seven of us stared at Ellie in shock. Random question much. She pushed her hair in front of her ears and awkwardly looked at her feet. "It's just I had this weird dream-" oh, high five, I had a weird dream too "- and there was this silver dude, and then there was an elevator and you were in it with me. Then the elevator stopped and in front of me were four people: Leo, Hazel, a weird greek woman and a really dark guy."

"I hated Pasiphae." Leo nudged Hazel almost affectionately.

"Can we just leave this subject alone. Please? I'm not open to talking about what happened over the summer, but I feel like I'm going to have to tell you. Soon." Annabeth looked at Ellie and me pleadingly.

Ok, I got that they had a hard summer. But not explaining what was going on, when they knew why me and Ellie had had the same nightmare? "So do you know how we had the same nightmare?"

"Nope, but we have our suspicions." Percy grinned at me. He clapped his hands together and pushed his chair away from the table. "Anyway, who's ready for gym?"

o0O0o

The gym was very easy to find, considering the fact that me and Percy walked into it by accident the day before. Three times.

I stared at the scene in front me in shock horror. A guy, who I assumed to be the coach, was brandishing a baseball bat at the rest of the class. "I'm Coach Hedge and this semester we are going to be having sword-fighting and archery lessons today, as we need you to toughen up a bit. So we are going to be having professionals in from a special summer camp to teach you. Come on in, cupcakes." During this speech the others in our group (apart from Ellie of course, and Peter?) were staring at the coach with happy expressions.

"Coach?" As the rest of the class watched the door for the instructors, Hazel ran towards the man her arms out for a hug. I half-expected the coach to turn her away and just stare at her in shock, but to my complete surprise he just opened his arms wide to receive it.

"How's Chuck?"

"I don't know, you should ask Piper. She's seen him more recently than me." Coach Hedge held up his hands.

Hazel opened her mouth to ask another question, but promptly closed it upon the entrance of two well-built boys who seemed around a year younger than us. "Okay, I think we're the instructors for today's lesson. I'm Frank." He gestured to himself. Frank was a tall, well-built Asian dude, but his accent suggested that he was Canadian. (Or maybe that was just the way he learnt English? I have a friend called Elise who's actually from Hong Kong, but she has an American accent.) "And this is Jason." He then pointed at his friend, a blond boy with startling blue eyes.

"Uh… hi?" The dude was staring at Piper and he was obviously disorientated. He blinked, then stared at a piece of paper for a few minutes; maybe he was dyslexic?

After five minutes, Frank snatched the paper from his hand and went on to read the slip. "We are from Delphi Summer Camp. Um… I'll be teaching archery, and Jason here will be teaching sword-fighting, like Coach Hedge said. So can you split into two groups? Those who want to do sword-fighting, stand here. Those who want to do archery, over there."

The class split quickly, each person choosing exactly where they want to go. Frank nodded happily. "That's good."

All of us were standing in our particular groups; I chose sword-fighting, because I figured that you couldn't do it every day, whereas there was actually an archery club at school. Frank seemed to be thinking for a bit; then he pointed at Percy, Annabeth, Hazel and Piper. "Can you four go and stand in the middle, please?" Jason tapped him on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Frank smiled apologetically. "Sorry, I meant to say you five." He gestured for Peter to join the group. "Can you tell us your names, please?" A smile played at the corner of his lips.

"Annabeth."

"Percy."

"Piper."

"Hazel."

"Peter."

Jason clapped his hands together. "Excellent. Have any of you done archery before, and not almost killed anyone?" This time Jason's gaze was directed at Percy.

Percy threw down his hands. "It was one time!" Now I knew they were friends. "And you weren't even there."

"Yeah, but bro, the girl you almost killed was my sister. Word gets 'round quickly." The blond boy smirked carefully.

"And she's my cousin. I apologized a lot afterwards." Percy held up his hands.

Jason shrugged before making a shooing gesture. "Annabeth, go." I watched the blonde girl pick up the bow and arrow, then walk over to the target range. She grabbed an arrow and fired at the target. Bullseye. She notched another. The arrow went straight through the other.

You could have heard a pin drop. We gaped at her in shock. Percy leaned into Hazel's ear and whispered something. Hazel laughed, then tapped Piper on the shoulder and whispered to her; probably the same thing.

"That is what practice can do." Frank clapped, then turned to Coach Hedge. "Who do you want doing the demonstration? Because that can mean either half an hour if you pick two certain people, or 10 minutes if you choose another two."

"Let's go for the half an hour one, they can make it quick." Coach Hedge got up. "Okay, you two know who you are. Make sure you keep it quick, and simple." Annabeth stayed at the front, but put the bow and quiver down, and instead picked up a sword from the rack, eyeing it slightly dubiously and weighting it in her hands.

Percy stepped forward and did the same. "You ready?" There was a gleam in his eyes as he said that.

"As always." She winked. "What I should be asking is: Are you ready to pay for a burger?"

Wait, he's getting her a burger after fighting her? That made sense; they _are_ boyfriend and girlfriend.

"No, you're buying me lunch. If you look at the odds, the scores are 38-35 and I'm winning." He smirked smugly at Annabeth. God, they were really competitive.

"3, 2, 1. Start. By the way, Percy's only had like a year's worth of sword-fighting lessons, whilst Annabeth's had roughly seven." Jason grinned at the set up.

Percy glanced at his feet sheepishly. "It's not my fault… I should _really_ have had five."

"Just start, Kelp Head." Annabeth sighed, before making a stab at him. He blocked her, then it began. The pace quickened with every move, the fight starting to look like a choreographed dance. Swing, duck, parry. Swing, duck, parry. Their swords wove between each other. Metal clanged on metal as the fight progressed.

Suddenly, they were standing hilt-to-hilt, swords against each other in an 'X' shape, both pressing towards the other.

Percy looked bored, then began to idly chat to Annabeth while she pushed her sword towards him so hard her arms were trembling slightly. Percy rolled his eyes, then shrugged. I only heard the last part of their exchange: "Fine. I guess I've got cash for it. I'm too tired to actually be bothered to beat you, anyway. You're in a competitive mood today, and I'm telling you that this sword is balanced so _weirdly_. It's like it _wants_ to stab the floor."

He suddenly released the pressure on his sword and swivelled it to the left, ducking at the same time to avoid Annabeth's blade as her momentum carried her stumbling forwards.

They began to fight again.

I watched the humanoid shapes blur for a few more seconds, until I heard a two clangs quickly following each other, then it stopped. Annabeth was on top of Percy, her blade balanced above his throat, his a foot from his hand. Neither of them were breaking a sweat or panting. It was obvious that the rest of the class were just as shocked. One year of training and they can give half an hour demonstrations?

"Now you owe me a burger."


	11. Ellie VI

Ellie POV

I stared at Annabeth in shock. She never played sports or anything; I only started getting hints of her being remotely athletic from Hazel and Piper the day before. Whatever I was expecting after that, was certainly not what I got. She was _amazing_.

"And that is what you can do after a few lessons." Frank walked forward, clapping. "Annabeth, of course, has had about ten years of training, though only seven years of full on lessons, so it was natural that she would win."

Ten years of training? What? One of the few things I knew about Annabeth was that she ran away when she was seven. But if she had been training at camp for ten years, she would have been seven when she started. Actually that added up; never mind.

"So, if you are going with me for archery, go other there by the targets and wait. If you're with Jason, go over to the rack of swords. Is that clear? Good."

o0O0o

After an hour of Gym, I was absolutely sweating. Annabeth, however, was barely breathing heavily. "So, how did you find that?" she asked as we reunited in the hallway.

"A nightmare; it's so tiring. I really don't understand why you don't find it exhausting; you seem to find it exhilarating and exciting. It doesn't make sense!"

She shrugged her shoulders, a look of confusion on her face. "I don't know, just practice I guess. Anyway, what do you have next period?"

"Um-" I grabbed my schedule, "Latin. You?"

"Greek, but I know that Hazel's taking Latin, so don't worry."

At least I'd been taking Latin since freshman year, otherwise I'd be dead. Ugh, it's so complicated, I feel so sorry for Hazel: Mrs Cabot - the Latin teacher - wasn't that tolerating if you didn't understand what she was teaching. I saw the cinnamon haired girl walking through the corridor and ran across to join, while accidently bumping into people and knocking books out of their hands. "Hey Hazel. Looking forward to Latin?"

"It's going to be so boring." Hazel rolled her eyes, looking at me.

I felt a pang of sympathy; she mustn't have done Latin before, otherwise she would know that you don't just cover the language but also the culture and that's quite interesting. Like in our final Latin lesson we have a 'Feast of Fortuna' and have food and everything. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll pick it up quickly." Hazel's head flicked up, her expression of confusion clear. Then she did the weirdest thing: she giggled. "What? No, I'm fluent, that's my point. I'm going to be bored while we learn how to conjugate all of these Latin verbs and nouns." It was my turn to look confused,

"Fluent? But how... "

"Oh, my dad has a passion for the language, so he made me learn it." She smiled sweetly, but I realised that she was obviously lying. "So which room is it in? You went to this school, not me."

I showed her the way to the Latin room, then sat down in my usual spot. I noticed that Peter was taking this class as well. I started doodling on my notebook until a voice shook me out of my stupor. "Hey, can I sit here?" My head sprang up, no one ever talked to me in school. Standing in front of me was a blonde girl with blue eyes.

"Sure, what's your name? Mine's Ellie."

"I'm Felicity. I went to Goode, and I'm guessing you went to Court House?" I took this moment to inspect her while I nodded. Her dirty-blonde hair didn't seem very brushed, as if she ran a brush through it a bit before giving up. Her blue eyes gleamed with intelligence, hungry for more learning - I had a feeling she read a lot of books. She was quite tall, but not as tall as the other girls I'd seen in the corridors from Goode. She had a slight British accent, maybe she lived there when she was younger?

"Yes, and I've got a question."

"Shoot." She motioned forwards with her hands, laughing quietly.

"Did you go to Hogwarts for middle school?"

She stared at me for a few moments. Then laughed again. "No, but I was one of the many children in Britain who actually went to King's Cross and tried to find platform 9 ¾ . I guess you picked up my accent then?"

"Yeah, where about in the UK did you live?"

"About an hour away from London. Have you heard of Reading?"

"Like in Pennsylvania?"

"No, the place in England. Um… Have you heard of the Henley Regatta?" I shook my head.

"Windsor Castle?"

"That's the place where the Queen lives sometimes, right?"

"Well, I went to primary -" She looked at my confused expression, then face-palmed. " _Elementary_ school a few miles from there. It's essentially where I grew up." She grinned, exposing her pearly whites. "But eh, I've been gradually losing my accent over the past six years, so it's only just there. I'm quite surprised you noticed it." In her eyes was something of respect. "When does class start anyway?"

"Um… About now. But the old Latin teacher was never late."

"Maybe we have a new one?" Felicity suggested eagerly.

Then a flustered woman walked in. "Hello class, sorry I'm late. Now none of you will know me, so my name is Mrs Schafer and I'm your Latin teacher this year. Now, I'm aware that all of you have taken Latin before and this will be good so I don't have to go over the basics." The teacher brushed her hair behind her ears and smiled. "So we will be going onto how and when to use the genitive and ablative cases, and how to recognise them. "

I buried my face into the desk and groaned.

o0O0o

Felicity and me gradually became good friends, and she would sit with us at Lunch. The others warmed up to her quickly, even though she kept on shooting suspicious looks at Annabeth. I asked her about it once and she explained quickly that her friend Olivia back home looked like her with blonde hair and bluey-grey eyes. I seemed curious; Felicity always made references to her old home but she never seemed to make eye contact with any of the other girls from Goode. I had a feeling that I wasn't the only person who was an unpopular nerd at their old school.

"So who were your friends at Goode? Because I feel like I'm sort of hogging you, and your old friends might want to see you."

Her gaze turned towards her feet. "Look, until I met you, I never thought I would be anything near popular, but now I'm sitting with some of the most popular people in Goode: Percy Jackson and Danny Robinson. And they _like_ me; the girl with no friends because she always had her nose in a book. So I couldn't admit that you were my first friend since England." She took a deep breath. "The 'popular girls' of Goode are now shooting me dirty looks instead of ignoring me, boys are actually looking at me as if I might be an actual person, rather than a way of returning homework on time." Her deep sapphire eyes were glistening with emotion. "I'm no longer just the girl in the library; I couldn't admit that I was that girl who sat in the corner with nothing but her lunch."

I tilted her head up to face me, her tears dripping down her chin. "You weren't the only one who didn't have friends; before I met Annabeth I was that girl, whenever Annabeth disappears for some reason I'm that girl. You're not alone in this, trust me, I have personal experience." We were nose to nose now, I couldn't help it. I went in for a kiss. I felt Felicity's sharp intake of breath as she tensed up against the feeling of my lips against hers. Then I felt the pushing movement of her kissing back. We stood there like that for a few seconds before we finally pulled apart. Her eyes, searching, found mine. A hundred different emotions ran through those Aegean coloured orbs.

I felt I could only apologise, "Sorry. I'll just go." I made a move to leave, but then she grabbed my arm.

"You don't need to apologise." Her expression was one that I'd seen Percy use with Annabeth.

My best friend called it baby seal eyes.


	12. Danny VI

Danny POV

After Gym, Percy and I had Greek. I never understood why Goode offered it, maybe because it was 'a cultural language that could help us understand philosophy', or so the school said. Percy was fluent in Greek. The rest of my class and I could never work out how he'd learnt it, because as far as we could tell he went to 3 different middle schools and none of them taught Greek. It only left one option: his summer camp. But that just didn't make sense, so we left him alone, except for asking for help with Greek homework. Our teacher was called Mr Davies and he seemed to not have a clue about the Greek language, so most of the time Percy ended up being asked to do examples of phrases and he would eventually have to teach the class because Mr Davies had fallen asleep.

I walked into class and discovered a new teacher standing there. "We have a couple of latecomers, I see. Come in, come in. Now as punishment can you sit down at the front here next to..?"

The girl at the front beamed at her. "Annabeth Chase, miss." Of course it was Annabeth we were sitting next to. Eh, if she was as good as Percy at Greek, that might be alright.

"Okay, as I was saying, I am Ms. Yew."

I heard Percy and Annabeth suck in a breath when they heard her surname.

"I am here to teach you the basics of Greek. If you are advanced in the language you will be going into the room next door to be taught by people who were my son's friends. These children are all Greek and I'm sure you'll start learning Greek quickly and easily. Now first of all, is anyone in here fluent?"

Percy stuck up his hand, and so did Annabeth. Upon further inspection of the room I found that Piper was also fluent. I half expected Leo to put up his hand as well, but the curly-haired boy was busy fiddling with... was that a rubber band helicopter? That was until Piper snatched it away from him and pulled his hand into the air.

"Sorry, Mrs Yew, his ADHD is acting up." It seemed to Mrs Yew that was a reasonable excuse for not paying attention in Greek. Then I thought back to what the teacher just said. "Sorry Mrs Yew, but did you just say 'were'?" Percy and Mrs Yew stiffened. "Yes, Mr -?"

"Robinson."

"My son died last year when the Williamsburg bridge collapsed." Didn't it collapse during the famous New York blackout? "Now you four can go through to the room next door and start working on your Greek; maybe go through your Greek mythology."

She winked at Percy, who muttered something under his breath.

"Now go." She made a little shooing gesture, and the group of them left the room. "Now, can I see how you do in this test on the Greek language and mythology. Those of you who get over 80% will go through to the other room and start learning more about the inner details of mythology from Greece. But, be warned, this test is very difficult." She started handing out sheets of paper. I looked at the first question. _1\. Who are the twelve Olympians?_ Well, I thought about how we learnt that back in freshman year at Goode. We learnt them by imagining a summer camp and each cabin that we imagined would represent a different Olympian. This was Percy's idea of course, and it was after he had been to summer camp. So I recalled the cabins. Cabin 1 - Zeus. Cabin 2 - Hera. Cabin 3 - Poseidon. Cabin 4 - ... oh, it was that plant goddess I could never remember. Della? Demi? Demeter! Cabin 5 - Apollo. No, Ares. Cabin 6 - Athena. Cabin 7 - _This_ time it's Apollo. Cabin 8 - Artemis, she follows Apollo in the order. Cabin 9 - Hephaestus. Cabin 10 - Aphrodite. Cabin 11 - Hermes? Yeah, Hermes. Cabin 12 - Dionysus. I wrote down my list of names and continued with the test.

o0O0o

I finished fifteen minutes later, along with the rest of the class. There were only like 15 people in our class, and four had just left the room. So Mrs Yew only had to collect and look through eleven papers.

After five minutes of flicking through, the teacher held up two papers in her left hand. "Can I congratulate," - she glanced at the papers - "Daniel Robinson and Roxy Glover? You both got 100%. Gus Isling got 94% and the only other person to get over 80% was Lila Crays. So if you pop into the other room, I will start teaching the class about the questions in the test." The scraping of chairs against the floor was loud in the silence, as me and three others slowly got up and walked out of the room.

The room next door had seven people in it. Percy, Annabeth, Piper and Leo were in there, of course, and sitting with them was a tall blond boy that I recognised as Percy's friend, Will Solace, and a burlier guy with callouses coating his hands. The final person was a guy, again, with blond hair and grey eyes like Annabeth's.

"So you're the people in the class who got over 80%? Hmm, I thought it would be less. Well I'm Will Solace, that's Jake Mason" - he pointed to the burly boy - "And finally that's Malcolm Pace, who is Annabeth's brother." I was going to guess that Malcolm and Jake also went to this camp with the other lot in here that were fluent. "I have to admit I'm kind of surprised that Mrs Yew is teaching Greek; I mean, you would have thought that she would have cut off all ties to her ex's side of the family. I mean, no offence Percy, but you'd think that she would blame you or me for Michael's death, seeing that we were with him at the time that the bridge collapsed," Will muttered to Percy.

My best friend nodded, but then whirled his head around to Will, a thought clearly on his mind. "Yeah, but we never found the body. Michael could be alive."

"Yeah, but we don't know if that's true or not. As much as I would like to think that my brother's alive, I just don't want to talk about it." Will put his head in his hands and groaned. There was an awkward silence.

"So what myths should we do?"

"I've always been interested in the story of Perseus. Percy always says that he was called Perseus for good luck, but I don't know why the name Perseus has good luck linked with it."

Percy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "The name Perseus is good luck because Perseus is basically the only Greek hero who got a happy ending."

Gus, the only other boy who came in with me, had a confused expression on his face, "What about Hercules? I mean, he became a god and got reunited with his mother and father and everything."

Annabeth glared at him. "You've only watched the film, haven't you?"

"Well duh, what do you expect me to read a Greek mythology book and find the actually story?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes at him. " _Yes_. Hercules is actually the Roman name for Heracles. Also, though he did become a god, he also had to guard the entrance to the Mediterranean. Probably was really bitter, considering the fact that he had to live on the same island as his immortal enemy."

Piper muttered, "He became a jerk after two thousand years."

Lila raised her eyebrows, her large glasses giving the impression of an owl. "You sound like you've had personal experience with Hercules."

I have to admit, she did make it sound like she'd met him.

"No, no. Just read the stories, a lot." Piper gave a meaningful glance towards Annabeth.

I started connecting everything the people in Percy's little group had in common. Each of them had half-siblings, except for Percy. They all spoke Greek or Latin fluently. They each went to summer camp with Percy. And they were all half-Greek or Italian, or as I suspected now, Roman. They each said gods instead of god. They spoke about myths in the present tense.

I had a question I needed to ask Percy.

o0O0o

"So, did you enjoy Greek?" Percy turned to look at me. Yeah, it was cool to be in room with just teenagers and do nothing, and get higher grades, but that question kept on nagging me. It was impossible, improbable; but there was no other explanation.

"Yeah, but can I talk to you later? Alone. I think I've figured something out."

Percy's relaxed expression turned to panic. "What do you think you've figured out?" He was definitely flustered.

"The secret that you and your camp friends are hiding. And I have a feeling you're going to tell me I'm wrong, no matter what I say. So I want you to answer truthfully. Are the Greek Gods real?"

A million different emotions ran through Percy's face. "Pfft, of course not. What would make you think that?"

I glared at him. He glared back, well, before we heard the sound of footsteps running down the hallway.

"Hey! How did you think Greek was?"

Percy turned to Annabeth and answered for me. "He thought it was good, and then he asked me something completely crazy." He held his fist to his mouth as if laughing. "He asked me if the Greek gods are real."

Annabeth was a better actor than Percy; she didn't let her eyes give away her emotions, but I know there panic was there. "Percy, if he's worked it out, I think we should tell him."

Percy opened his mouth to argue, but Annabeth cut him off with a glare. "You told Rachel. I'm planning on telling Ellie later anyway."

At this, she turned to me and smiled. "Danny, you are absolutely correct. But what I want to know is how you think we're related to them?"

"Are you... Are you gods?"

Annabeth chuckled quietly to herself. "Me, no. This one," she motioned to Percy, "Almost."

I ran through my head the different parts of Greek mythology. Gods. No. Monsters? It didn't really seem like it. "Demigods? Are you demigods?"

Annabeth beamed at me, then gave me a look as if to say, ' _Which gods are our parents?_ '

"Well, Percy is easy. Poseidon. But you're the one I'm not sure about. The most likely of the gods is probably Athena."

They both nodded at me. "And I guess you're summer camp is for people like you?"

Another nod. "Wait, does that mean everyone except for Ellie in our group is a demigod?"

"So many questions. You remind me a bit of my cousin, Magnus, when I was younger. Speaking of him, I haven't seen him in years. I think he still lives in Boston, with his mom and near Uncle Randolph." She started muttering thoughtfully to herself.

"So the guys from gym and Greek are demigods as well?"

"Yeah..."

"I've got one final question. Do you think that Ellie and I are demigods too?" That question had been nagging me since I found out the truth.

Percy and Annabeth exchanged a dubious look and seemed to have one of those weird mental conversations with their eyes.

"We're not sure," Annabeth started, "But we think you might, though you don't have ADHD or dyslexia, so we can't be positive, but your dream gives us more suspicions. I mean, you saw what happened to us this summer, so either you were getting those weird prophetic dreams like Rachel had before she became the Oracle, or you're one of us."

"Wait, Rachel Elizabeth Dare?"

"Yeah, she's the Oracle of Delphi at Camp Half-Blood."

I held my head in my hands, trying to take this all in, as it seemed to come over me like a tidal wave. "There's so much to take in. Gods, demigods, there are monsters too, right?"

Annabeth answered me with a nod.

"Now there's an Oracle. What next are you going to tell me that the Roman and Egyptian ones are real as well?" Annabeth and Percy glanced at each other pointedly. "Of course they are." I muttered.

I opened my mouth to ask another question, but then the bell rang, and the two demigods ran off to their next lessons. I stared after them, finally understanding why they had such a good run on them. I looked at my timetable; oh damn, English with Mr Blofis. Not that I didn't like him, he was Percy's step dad after all, but still, English puts me to sleep.

I ran through the corridors, occasionally bumping into people who would respond with shout of "Hey!", "Watch it!" and "Look where you're going, swim boy!". Eventually I got to class and looked through the window of the door. I saw that everyone else was sitting down, listening to Mr Blofis. I had no other option, so I burst through the doors (running) and quickly apologised to Percy's step dad.

"Ah, Mr Robinson. So glad you could join us, but, unfortunately, you don't get to pick your seat, so you will be sitting next to Miss Morgan in the corner there." He pointed to a red-haired girl, who had startling blue eyes and thick horn-rimmed glasses. She resembled a female version of what Percy Weasley (from the books, don't judge me: I read!) looked like. I'd seen her a couple of times around Goode, but not much, because she never really spoke to many people outside of the school drama club.

"Oh, you're the dude from the swim team. Damon, right?"

"Danny, actually. And you're Rhys, the girl who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. You don't strike me as a dog person, you know?"

She glanced up at me coldly, "And you don't strike me as a swimmer. Anyway, we should be getting on with the work." She turned back to writing down the homework.

"You really don't strike me as an actress either, maybe a fangirl, though. I mean you look kinda like Percy Weasley."

She shot up at this comment and silently slapped my arm. "I take offence at that comment!" Her voice was an octave higher than usual.

"Daniel, Rhys, is something wrong?" Mr Blofis asked us, worry scrunching his eyebrows together.

Rhys and I spoke at the same time. "No!"

"He called me Percy Weasley!" she cried in distaste.

"I said you look like him, and only kind of." The class were laughing at our exchange. I heard mutters of "It's about time someone told her!" and "He said it, he actually said it!". Oh good, I'm not the only one that thinks that.

"Mr Robinson, you should not be calling people names, no matter how true they are!"

The class sniggered at that comment made by Mr Blofis. "I will have to separate you two. Mr Robinson, come and sit next to Miss Gardiner, and Miss Morgan, come and sit down next to Miss Quimby."

I came to the front, ignoring the rest of the class's accusatory looks and sat down next to 'Miss Gardiner'. She was an African-American girl with cornrows and weirdly green eyes; they sort of reminded me of grass.

"Hi, I'm Miranda." She then turned away and chatted to the boy on her left for the rest of the class.

When the bell went, I was all too happy to leave the class and rejoin the others. I fell into line with Percy and Annabeth as they walked past the classroom. "Have you told Ellie yet?"

The couple shook their heads, "She's constantly hanging around with a girl called Felicity. Look, there they are now!"

Annabeth pointed to a blonde girl and Ellie. "They seem to be getting along well; we're pretty sure that they met each other in Latin, seeing as they were chatting away to each other as they came into Chemistry." I watched in amazement, as the two girls headed towards the dining hall for lunch. Over the next few weeks, Ellie's friend, Felicity, sat with us at meals.

A couple of weeks after I first met Felicity I found her and Ellie crouched in a janitor's closet with the door open. Bad idea on their part. I heard mumbling from the cupboard and then silence. I peered around the door to see if they'd left it, but instead I caught them in a kiss. My mouth dropped open: Ellie and Felicity. Now there's a plot twist.

* * *

 **And we're done for today. See you next time, when we have the characters discussing their demigod lives and explaining everything to their clueless mortal friends.**

 **Don't forget criticism is always welcome (as long as it's constructive) and reviews will (probably) make us write faster. We will reply to reviews at the start of the next chapter if you have any questions that you want to ask us.**

 **AHermione H and StormSunfire.**


	13. Ellie VII

**Hi again! Guess who's (predictably) back with two new chapters. There's some discussion of demigod life, awkward Greek lessons and… That's about it. There's a lot of dialogue in these chapters as our OCs get more and more confused as they find out more and more of the demigods' secrets.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **NeatherStar (We know you reviewed a while ago, sorry for not replying earlier) - Thanks so much! It's great to know that you're enjoying the outsider's point of views as much as we are!**

 **Alicia Olivia Mirza - Thank you for reviewing! Well, you'll have to wait and see on the entire insider/outsider front, but keep reading. And yeah, we've been trying to work out why we haven't had much criticism yet/ people saying they enjoyed it, but we don't really mind.**

 **Hearth (Guest) - Thanks for sharing your opinion, though we have been a bit worried that if we space out every single event it might be even longer than it is at the moment (which is currently 161 pages on Google Docs and 86k words). I hope you keep reading though, as the chapters get longer and based mainly on single events rather than the build up.**

* * *

Ellie POV

Felicity and I didn't really talk for a couple of weeks after the kiss, because we were both in shock.

Well, I was in shock. I really didn't expect our talk to end like that. Countless thoughts ran through my mind, mainly along the lines of _What do I do? What do I say?_ And, to both those questions, my brain had no responses. Zilch.

We seemed to have made a silent agreement to avoid each other, well, until we literally bumped into each other in the hallway. Her maths books clattered to the ground as they fell out of her hands. "Sorry," was muttered by the both of us. I picked up her stuff and handed it to her, then walked away. I felt kind of bad, but I simply had no idea what to say and was already running late for History class.

I heard the thump of a person running against the linoleum floors of the school, but they didn't catch up to me before I entered the History classroom.

I slumped into my place, then sat down and breathed a sigh of relief. Well, I _was_ relieved until the teacher walked into the classroom.

"Today we will be looking at the Civil War." That was when I decided to groan.

o0O0o

After History class I finally spoke to Annabeth for the first time in ages.

"Ellie, I've been looking everywhere for you! Three weeks and all you've done is sit under the covers of your bed and groan, only coming out for lessons. Why have you become a hermit crab, Ellie?"

"I'll explain later, but why were you looking for me?"

"I need to explain something, something very important. The reason why I'm so secretive. But we need to go find Percy, oh, and maybe Danny."

"Why do we need Danny; he doesn't go to your camp, does he?"

Annabeth glanced back at me; she hadn't looked back since she started dragging me towards the front lawn of the school. "Because he wants you to know what we told him. And, also, I was planning on telling both of you together, but Danny sorta guessed."

"Sort of guessed what?" Annabeth ignored me, as she walked over to a big tree where you could see the silhouette of two boys sitting in the shade. "I've got her!"

The two boys turned at the sound of Annabeth's voice.

"Great." Percy gave me an easy smile that made me feel immediately relaxed. "So, what do you think our secret is?"

"Um... I don't know, but I'd guess at something to do with camp and your parents. Maybe to do with Leo and that lot too."

Annabeth locked eyes with me and the corners of her mouth turned up. "Yep, but what do you think the secret is?"

I backed away, confused. I couldn't work out what the secret could be; the only thing that could possibly come to mind was basically a theme of Harry Potter and witches and wizards. I voiced my thoughts to the group. Percy and Annabeth laughed at this comment.

"The Hecate kids could be, I guess. Not us, though." I knew the name Hecate: what did I know it from? Wait, that nerdy game from when I was a little kid; it was a trading card game, what's it called? Oh, Mythomagic.

No way. That could not be possible. But _maybe,_ it could be, I mean the Greeks did that the gods were immortal?

"Are, are... they real?" I choked on the words as I tried to get them out.

"Are who real?"

"Mythomagic... The gods - Are they real?"

Daniel nodded slowly, "I thought that as well."

I blinked at him, a blank look crossing my face.

"Your expression says 'I can't believe I'm saying something impossible.'"

"So what do you have to do with all of this then?" I asked the three of them, "Are you gods or something?" Percy and Annabeth burst out laughing and grasped their sides, while Danny just smiled sympathetically at me. "I believe Annabeth's words were, 'Me, no. This one, almost.' Oh, and I'm just like you; mortal, we think."

I looked up at him, a confused expression plastered across my face. "We think?"

Percy jumped in to reply to my question. "We think you could be like us-"

"Like you? But what are you?"

Percy and Annabeth exchanged uneasy looks and preceded to have a rapid conversation in, was that Ancient Greek? Probably Ancient Greek. Percy coughed and continued the conversation in English. "A demigod, like Hercules and all of that lot like Perseus and Theseus. Blah, blah. Oh gods, I sound like Mr D. Basically our parents are Greek gods. My dad is Poseidon and Annabeth's mom is Athena."

My mouth dropped to the floor; whatever I'd been expecting, I wasn't expecting that. "The gods still do _that_?" Images of marble statues lying in beds graced my dirty mind.

"Yes, well, they are immortal, aren't they?"

"Yes, but-"

"But what, immortal means immortal; they're going to continue doing what they did 4000 years ago today, aren't they?"

"Yes, but-" Annabeth crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.

"There's no but -" The other three of us sniggered into our hands at her phrasing of the sentence. "-about it. Perseus Jackson! Stop laughing, it's not funny and neither is your dam joke!" Percy cracked up again.

Danny and I exchanged glances; these two were really weird.

Annabeth continually elbowed Percy in the gut until he stopped guffawing loud enough to be heard in California. "Shut up!" Percy yelped as she gave him one final sharp shove. We sat there in silence for a few minutes; it quickly became thick enough to cut with a butter knife, but in this case the silence was not sliced, but eroded away by the ever loudening bell.

Percy swore, as he realised that they hadn't explained what they'd meant to. "We'll explain what we want to do soon, but now we've got Greek and I think Mrs Yew still blames me for Michael's death." And on that bizarre and worrying note, the other three ran away to Greek, while I trudged down the corridor to Latin.


	14. Danny VII

Danny POV

As we jogged down the labyrinth of corridors, I fired a fusillade of questions at the two demigods. "Why did Ellie take it so calmly?", "What the heck is Mythomagic?" and "Why is she so dirty minded?"

They just laughed and went back to focusing on the jog down the corridors, but at least I understood why they ran so fast now. Stupid godly abilities. No fair, I want running powers.

When we got to the advanced room, Percy and Annabeth were already in there, whispering something to Will.

"Oh, right." Then his face turned to shock, "Like the stuff that Neeks used to play?"

I no longer had any idea what they were talking about. Maybe it was that thing that Ellie mentioned - Mythomagic?

"That's how she figured it out, are you kidding me? What about him?" The other two continued whispering, yeah, Will didn't know how to whisper. I could hear every word. "You just told him, like that? Are you kidding me? You can't just go around telling random

mortals about us!"

Lila raised her eyebrows at the blond dude. "Did you call us mortals? Because I hate to point this out, but everyone in this world is a mortal."

I held back a laugh, as I thought of what I had been told by Percy and Annabeth earlier. Mortals indeed! I coughed to clear my throat of the chuckle that had got stuck halfway up my trachea.

"Oh, you heard that. You shouldn't have heard that!" Will blushed beetroot red and panicked, clearly trying to work out how to pass this one off. That was going to happen as soon as pigs fly!

Malcolm stood up and snapped his fingers. "You didn't hear what Will just said. He was just talking about a summer camp we go to." All of the other students blinked, their eyes

suddenly bleary and confused.

What?

Percy leaned forward and whispered into my ear, "The Mist." Oh, the thing that Annabeth had told me about hiding the mythological world from mortals.

Will clapped his hands, "Right, what do you guys want to learn about today, because this is a completely relaxed lesson so..."

"How about the Underworld?" Roxy suggested.

Will's eyes widened comically, giving him the expression of a rabbit caught in the head lights. Percy drew his finger across his throat, eyes flickering between Will and Annabeth.

Annabeth's eyes had also widened similarly to Will's, but her's held fear instead of worry. "I think, Ms. Yew was going to cover that with you in class when all of them have caught up with you."

Annabeth visibly exhaled as Will somehow managed to pass this off. It's possible that pigs have flown then.

Percy lifted his arm slightly in an awkward fashion. "How about Theseus and the Minotaur?"

"Yes, that's a great idea!" Malcolm shouted enthusiastically, with a far too obvious wink at Annabeth. Annabeth clearly didn't want to talk about the Underworld, for whatever reason, and it seemed like Percy and Will didn't want to either. Go figure, these people are weird.

But then again they are the children of 'mythological' gods. It was probable that they'd been to the Underworld and a bunch of other stuff. Oh well, if they didn't want to talk it wasn't worth pushing them. No way would any of us 'puny mortals' be able to make them say something they didn't want to.

Roxy gave a slightly dramatic sigh, before agreeing to the prospect of Theseus and the Minotaur. Some girl I didn't know popped her head around the door and asked for us to come back to the classroom, because the rest of the class had caught up with us.

Will stood up reluctantly. "Yeah sure. We'll come." We trudged back to the Greek class, where Mrs Yew had written 'Myths' in large letters on the whiteboard. "Any suggestions for characters from the Greek myths?"

A kid in the back of the room shouted, "What about Perseus…Jackson!" Half the class burst out laughing. Annabeth looked slightly concernedly at Percy, just in case he was about to go punch whoever said that and would have to restrain him. She didn't. Percy looked calm on the outside, but I knew him well enough to be able to tell that he wanted nothing more than to hit something (or someone). Quite hard.

"We can do Perseus another day," she said, ignoring the part about 'Jackson'. "But, today, perhaps we could look at the child of a different god. How about Theseus?" The last of the sniggers died away, as the novelty of teasing a classmate with a weird name wore off.

Funny how they didn't know how close to the truth they were.

"Hilarious," Mrs Yew said tightly. "Now I take it we are ready to learn and have stopped teasing people about things that they can't change? I'm sure that Mr Jackson is a hero to some, but please think seriously. We are in a lesson, now, after all."

Wolf-whistles went around the class this time. Annabeth rolled her eyes, fully aware that the jest was directed at her, but studiously ignoring them. Ms Yew finally got the class quiet, and started promptly droning about the Minotaur. I think that at least half of the class went into a torpor of boredom. Tests on the Minotaur? C- for everyone. Except perhaps the demigods in the class. They could have met it, for all I knew. I needed to ask Percy so much.

o0O0o

"Perce," I called, tapping him on the shoulder after leaving Greek (the last ones of course, as Mrs Yew insisted on dragging him out right at the end of the lesson for a 'talk', in which we saw lots of arm gesticulating through the glass door, and after which Mrs Yew promptly dismissed us.).

His face immediately took on a guarded expression, before realising it was me. "Yeah?"

"I just wanted to ask you something."

"Yes… Fire away." He sounded a little nervous, but I figured that he would respond to my quizzing in one of two ways. He'd either give me a rather short answer to roughly explain, or say he didn't want to talk about it. Or, actually, he might give me a full answer now, considering the cat was out of the bag on the whole demigod thing. Might.

"Have you ever met the Minotaur?"

Percy's face paled; I took that as a yes. But touchy subject. (Actually, pretty much anything demigodly seems to be a touchy subject, so I didn't pay that fact too much attention.)

He looked me in the eye coldly. "Yes, twice."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"Not really, but I suppose you have to know. It started off the first time I found out that I was a demigod; actually, scrap that, I hadn't. He chased me all the way to Camp and I thought he'd killed my mom. The second time was during the first war. He approached me on the Williamsburg bridge -" He was cut off by my gasp.

"When Mrs Yew's son died?"

Percy nodded solemnly. "Michael was a great, if rather short, comrade and commando."

I cocked my head to the side. "So, it _was_ your fault that Mrs Yew's son died?"

"Not exactly. I did tell him to get off before I broke it."

My eyes widened in shock; he didn't mean that, did he? "Before you _what?_ "

"Before I broke the bridge. You know, I'm sure you saw the damage."

"You broke a bridge?"

"Yeah, it's not as bad as when I blew up Mount St Helens in the year before we started at Goode."

I looked at him again, disbelief rushing into my facial expressions. " _You_ blew up a volcano and almost killed everyone in a 100 kilometre radius?"

"Well yes, it _does_ sound bad when you say it like that."

"Now you're going to tell me that all those storms were your fault as well?"

Percy looked at his feet and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"You're kidding, right? Right?"

"By blowing up Mount Saint Helens, I kinda released the dude that was responsible for all of those 'storms'," he added, putting exaggerated quotation marks around 'storms'. I mentally face palmed. Really? "Look, I don't go blowing stuff up for fun, even if it does sound like that. I do it for a reason."

"What other stuff have you blown up 'for a reason', then?"

"Um... The St. Louis Arch. A beach in Santa Monica. And maybe a rather expensive cruise ship. Yeah, that's about it. If you don't count that parking lot in Rome and the Parthenon. But that wasn't my fault _specifically_. And it wasn't really _blown up._ Just kinda, well, the area around it was blown up. Not by me. By our flying trireme. Oh, if you count the trireme, I suppose I'll have to say that I blew up the Colosseum and New Rome. But I didn't actually do the blowing up. That was another little crazy dude that you know."

"Little crazy dude?" I echoed, wondering who the hell that could be.

"You know, Leo Valdez, that one."

" _He blew stuff up as well?"_ The pitch of my voice rose about an octave and a half.

"Look, I'm a demigod. Blowing stuff up, or generally destroying it, is what I do best. Plus Leo has fire powers."

" _Fire powers?"_

"Yeah, I know, it's totally unfair. Another of our friends, Frank, you know, the guy who came in for the workshop, yeah, that one, can shapeshift into any animal he likes."

" _Shapeshift_?"

"Yeah, like, turn into stuff. It's really cool."

"Who are you, Jackson, to complain about powers?" A rather bored voice sounded from behind us, and Annabeth strolled into view. So she'd been eavesdropping. That's not very kind.

She leaned against the doorframe next to us. "You, in case you hadn't noticed, have aquakinesis and can create earthquakes and hurricanes. And you can breathe and see underwater. Which, _Mr Swim Captain_ , is pretty unfair, if you were to ask me."

I think my jaw hit the ground at that comment. Annabeth reached out and closed it for me.

I hastily changed the subject to something that I was rather curious about.

"How the hell did you break the bridge?"

"Um… I'm not quite sure. I think I caused the bridge to crack by causing an earthquake then used water to blow it to bits, but I just kinda put my sword in the concrete and hoped it wouldn't get stuck and render me weaponless, and looking like a right idiot."

Annabeth nodded slightly. "I had always wondered how you did that? Though I didn't ask at the time because at that point I was an idiot and had a knife in my shoulder." Percy looked at her.

"But…"

"I wasn't there, remember, Seaweed Brain. Your horse, who will be very fat if you don't stop giving him those, had carried me off. I'd have thought you would remember that particular event."

"Ohhhhhhhh, right. So he had." I stared at them, utterly bewildered.

"Could someone please tell me what you two are yammering on about?"

"Battle of Manhattan. I got stabbed with a poisoned knife and was carried away by Percy's pegasus, Blackjack. Moral of that story, don't go getting yourself stabbed with daggers, even if they aren't poisoned. Believe it or not, it actually hurts." Annabeth seemed remarkably cheerful about something which must have been an incredibly unpleasant experience.

"Ok, I kinda get it. But why was there a dagger in the first place? Sorry for being dumb, but it seems like an obvious question to me. Also, you have a pegasus?"

"It was a _battle,_ " Annabeth explained in an 'I'm-talking-to-a-surprisingly-stupid-three-year-old' voice.

I gasped in realization. "Oh!" Maybe I was a surprisingly dumb seventeen year old.

"Yes, oh!" Annabeth replied, ever sarcastic.

"The Battle of Manhattan is a fancy name. Was it a big battle?" I pressed on, having caught them somewhat off guard, and keen to get as much out of them before the grille went up again ,and I'd have to wait for another suitable opportunity (which came about as often as a blue moon).

"It lasted for three nights," Percy said in a frighteningly casual tone. "It was the longest battle I've ever fought, but not the hardest."

My jaw dropped again, which seemed to be becoming a habit. This time, however, I managed to close it myself.

"Percy here, this _idiot,_ was the only demigod not to get hurt the entire time."

My eyes widened so far I felt they would pop out of the sockets at that particular comment.

"No," she continued, "he was not super skillful or just plain lucky. He was extraordinarily stupid, which, of course, shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was."

I think my eyebrows reached the Oort cloud at that. Gosh, this was confusing!

"He thought that it would be fabulous idea to go for a swim in the Underworld. I'm not sure if he'd bargained for the fact that it was the River of Hate."

"Hey!" Percy was bristling slightly at what Annabeth had said. "You _know_ it wasn't like that!"

"What, so you didn't go swimming in the Underworld, all of a sudden?"

" _No,_ it was the only way and di Angelo knew it, even if you didn't at the time!"

I was rubbing my forehead in confusion. "What the _heck_ are you talking about? You left me behind at swimming. You know very well that I enjoy a good swim."

"Something tells me," Annabeth said lightly, "that you wouldn't enjoy swimming in the corrosive water of the River Styx, otherwise known as the River of Hate." I shut up at that.

"It could've been worse," Percy mumbled. "It could've been the Acheron or the Phlegethon. Or it could have been the Lethe."

"Mmm hmm." Annabeth was unimpressed. "Yeah, it could've been. But still, you are remarkably stupid sometimes."

"Woah!" I stopped them again and looked directly at Percy. "Why were you swimming in the River Styx in the first place?"

"Good question. I had to defeat an invulnerable enemy. And the only way that you can defeat an enemy with skin like steel is to-"

"-become invulnerable yourself." Annabeth finished for him. "So, you know Achilles? He was invulnerable except for his heel, right? Well, Percy decided to take upon himself the Mark, or Curse, whichever way you think about it, of Achilles, to become totally invulnerable except for one small area of your choosing."

I found this a pretty cool idea. "What's it like, being invulnerable?"

"It's the most frightening thing in the world," Percy said darkly. Not quite the response I was expecting. "And besides, I think I chose the wrong Achilles spot. I almost got killed in a huge fight. In fact, I would have been killed if someone hadn't jumped in front of the knife."

Annabeth looked, well, slightly sheepish, though I wasn't sure why. "That would be me," she clarified. "Which brings us full circle with our talk of poisoned knives and soon-to-be-fat pegasi."

"He's not fat!"

"He will be if you don't stop feeding him doughnuts."

"I hardly ever give him doughnuts! You should hear how much he pesters me for them!"

"You feed a _pegasus_ doughnuts?"

"Yeah, he likes them. Besides, we're going off topic."

"What I'm curious about is-"

"-everything?" Annabeth smiled knowingly.

"-how you know Will, actually."

"Oh, right. He's camp's best healer. He healed my poisoned dagger wound."

Percy rolled his eyes, though I wasn't sure why until he spoke again. "Yeah, and I think he told you to rest it, didn't he? Not launch yourself straight back into fighting the people who poisoned you in the first place?"

Annabeth sighed rather over-dramatically. "Come _on_. It's not like I had much choice!"

Percy snorted derisively at that, but didn't try to argue. I was just about to ask another barrage of questions when a bell went. End of lessons.

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 **And that is it! Join us next time for another strange dream, someone else screaming and Drew actually playing a kind of valuable-ish part in our storyline.**

 **Don't forget that reviews are always welcome, be they critical, just appreciating the story, or any ideas (we can see what we can do inside our written plot line if we love the idea). We don't know what you think unless you drop us a review, so please do!**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	15. Ellie VIII

**Well, welcome back for another chapter! Thank you for all of the reviews we've had over the past few days.**

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 **Alicia Olivia Mirza - Woah, you've been reviewing so much. You're like accountable for half of our reviews! I get what you mean about the explaining PJO thing. I just end up handing them the books rather than trying to explain the plotline. Honestly, we were both really surprised when you said that you were feeling sorry for Ellie (we both actually think that our main characters are a bit like cardboard). Thanks and it's great that you've been enjoying this fic so much.**

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 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

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Ellie POV

My blonde hair started coming undone as I trudged up a slope towards a large gathering of translucent men. We stopped, as one of our company needed to catch his breath. Our companion was an old man, though somehow I knew that it was Jason. It felt like I was looking through a heat haze at a tall boy with white-blonde hair with a furrow in one side. He looked about the same age as my grandmother, although I knew that he was just sixteen; how? I wasn't sure. Our other companion was a girl wearing a somewhat ridiculous-looking dress. She was really, really pretty, and had dark hair done in an elaborate top knot. Piper. We then started back up the slope to where a fountain creepily spewed sand instead of water.

The dream was silent, but I could somehow tell that the semi-visible figures in the ancient courtyard were evil. The dream quickly seemed to fast forward to a guy who looked maybe eighteen or so standing behind Jason (no longer covered by the haze, so now I could see him clearly) then the only words of the dream: "Born a Roman, Die a Roman!" He then impaled Jason with a golden sword, and, before I, rooted to the spot with horror, could move, Piper had swung her blade at the spirit, who vanished with a hiss. Suddenly I felt as weak as Jason must. My knees buckled, and I spiralled back to reality.

I sat straight up in bed, sweating. What was that? How could a dream be so scarily realistic?

Wait. Oh, not again. Not another of those dreams as Annabeth. But, yes. Blonde hair, check. Scary adventure with the supernatural, check. Bunch of people who I knew but didn't know, check. Whoa. That was _Jason?_ The Jason who came and did that workshop? And Piper? At the top of a mountain? Not to mention the whole incident with the golden sword. Didn't that mean that Jason should've been _dead?_

Ugh. I'd have to ask Annabeth about it. What was the time? Six? Would she mind being woken up at six? I decided to take the risk and shook her.

Bad idea. Annabeth shot upward, and in a single fluid motion had me in a headlock.

"Ughhhhh," I spluttered.

"Don't _scare_ me like that," she hissed sharply. "I could've killed you by mistake. I've got a sword, I'll have you know."

I didn't doubt that she had a sword. I just didn't really want to be in a headlock. "Ummm, ughhhh?" I gasped, pointing to my throat.

"Oh, sure," Annabeth said without much conviction, but let me go. I stood up and rubbed my sore neck. "So, is there any reason for scaring me like that at this hour?"

"Um, this sounds really lame, but I had a really bad dream and wondered if you would be able to explain it…" It did sound lame when I said it.

"What kind of bad dream?" asked Annabeth, immediately suspicious.

"A kind of really scary bad dream like the one I had before, you know, that Danny had as well."

"Right, so, who was in the dream?"

"Um, lots of translucent people, Piper, you and Jason." Annabeth's eyes were slowly widening as I spoke.

"Ok, describe where it happened."

"It was really sunny, and on a mountain I think."

"Right. And, I loathe to ask this, but what happened?"

I fidgeted with my fingers. "The dream itself was silent, except for a sentence which made no sense, so it was quite hard to tell, but we walked up to the crest of the mountain, where these people were in an old courtyard around a fountain that spewed sand instead of water. Then it kind of fast forwarded, and-"

"-Jason had an incident with a golden sword," Annabeth finished. "Ironically, an Imperial Gold sword, which is a metal poisonous to demigods, which was just great."

"Yeah, but I didn't know about the sword. Only that he had an incident with it."

"Ok then, what was said?"

"Um, Born a Roman, Die a Roman."

"Yep, I know that particular incident. That happened during the summer."

"The same summer you don't want to talk about?"

"That's the one. Although that time in itself wasn't the worst thing that happened."

"That wasn't that bad? Your friend got killed!"

"No, he didn't, you saw him at the workshop. He was extremely lucky. Still not sure how he did it."

I was slightly frightened now. Why was I inside Annabeth's head when I dreamed? What was wrong with me?

"Are you OK?" Annabeth asked suddenly. "You look like you want to say something."

"It's fine, I think."

"What time is it?" she asked curiously.

"Six."

"Early morning then. I won't get back to sleep, and, from the look on your face, you won't either."


	16. Danny VIII

**Hey! Sorry for the delay in updating - StormSunfire and I were both ill, and we also went to see GotG - Vol. 2. Though we are back and we bring great news: We have three chapters that we still need to write and then we'll have an exact word count!**

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Danny POV

I awoke to a cacophony of noise coming from above.

I was out of bed in a flash, and ran along the tilting corridors and up the stairs, on to the deck of the trireme. The dragon figurehead (?) spewed fire, lighting up the clouds in brief flashes. Rain poured down, and a vicious wind was shredding the sails of all masts. A gorilla was untangling some of the triple-layered oars, and two figures were battling with the sails. A small someone was attached to the control board with a bungee cord, and as huge waves swept over the deck, was slammed to and fro, banging hard into the controls. Something told me that these figures were attempting to get the ship airborne, but the sky looked little less turbulent. I ran to the mainmast and steadied myself, before taking a deep breath and trying to right the boat, countering every time the warship lurched and knocking the bigger waves back. It still looked like a disaster, but I was actually getting somewhere, unlike everybody else.

About five minutes later, I was soaked to the skin and pretty tired. A blond boy staggered up to me, looking rather ill. He yelled, but I had no clue what he was trying to say over the wind. I gestured over the side of the boat, and pointed at him. He looked rather confused at that, and shouted again, but I pointed to my ears - I couldn't hear what he was saying. Then I deflected a final, enormous wave, and dived over the side, into the slate-grey, churning water. I floated still about ten metres below water level until the blond boy leaped over too, encased in a miniature tornado. I saw a green light and suddenly had the urge to follow it. I swam towards it, quicker than usual. The tornado continued spinning and went at the same speed as me towards a tall woman in the water with glowing white eyes that you could see from 20m away. Creepy.

The dream then blurred forwards to where I was on the seabed, near the creepy lady. There was another, much taller figure there; I couldn't hear what he was saying, but still felt a boiling rush of anger. I rushed towards him, my bronze sword drawn. He swept a hand across my path, and the water turned green-black in it's wake. I couldn't stop, and didn't want to stop, feeling the urge only to get to him and poke him hard with my sword. I plunged into the transformed water, but it choked me, burning my insides. I dropped the sword and clutched my throat, and an enormous weighted net fell over me, trapping me while the poison thickened and I went into a state of semi-consciousness for what felt like forever, until the net was hauled away and I came, still unable to properly breathe, into the clearer water.

The dream fell away as I woke up, gasping, and for some reason soaking wet.

"Danny? Earth to Danny, are you awake or did I just throw a bucket of water over you for no reason?"

"Whydyawakemeup?"

"Um, it's time to get up. Actually, Annabeth and Ellie have been banging on the door for the past half hour and telling us to meet them on the lawn after breakfast."

"But it's Saturday! Why wake up at such an ungodly hour?"

"I hate to break it to you, but there's really no such thing as an ungodly hour. I'm pretty sure the gods don't really care about the time."

"You know that's not what I mean! Anyway, why do they want to meet us?"

"No clue whatsoever. And besides, the excuse had better be a good one. I wanted to visit my mom this weekend. Oh for goodness' sake! Get up, you slowpoke!"

I slowly and laboriously got myself out of the bed and went to the shower. I had been hoping for a lie-in.

o0O0o

We trudged on to the lawn together after breakfast, and into the far corner under the big tree where we wouldn't be overhead. We plonked down in the shade and waited, until Percy asked the million-dollar question.

"Why did you want to talk to us?"

"Well," Annabeth began, "Ellie had another creepy dream last night, and I identified it as the suitor incident. You know, with Varus." I didn't know what she was talking about, but I'd also had a creepy dream that night. It couldn't be coincidence that both Ellie and I had creepy dreams on the same nights as each other.

"I had a creepy dream, too."

Percy stared at me, suddenly alarmed. "You didn't tell me about any creepy dream! What was it about?" he asked me.

"I was on this boat, and there was a huge storm. I think the figurehead was spewing fire. It was impossible to really see, but there was someone being slapped to and fro about the control board, and a gorilla that appeared to be untangling oars. I don't know how, but I knew that we were trying to get the ship in a condition where it could fly. But how and why would a boat fly?"

"I was the U.F.F." Leo stated proudly. "And it was my boat, and my best friend figurehead."

"U.F.F?" I echoed in confusion. I decided not to mention the whole figurehead thing.

"Unidentified Flying Figure. Now, continue."

"Well, I stood by the main mast and tried to stop the boat from capsizing or getting swamped. And then someone came up to me and, I think I told him to come with me. Then I dived over the side, and swum towards these green flashes. As soon as I dived over the side, the dream went silent. There was a tall, creepy lady there too."

Percy nodded slightly.

"And, then it sort of fast-forwarded, and I was charging another guy there. But he was really tall and looked furious. But he seemed to turn the water to poison, and trapped me in a net, and then I don't remember much else. It finished soon after."

Percy looked slightly green by the end of this, and slightly despairing. Annabeth was also a little confused.

"I can tell by the storm when that was. But I don't recognise the underwater bit."

"You weren't there, Wise Girl. _I_ know that incident, and I'm sure you do too. That was when our friend took it upon himself to become _Pontifex._ He did save my life down there, which was kind of embarrassing. It shouldn't really be that way around at the bottom of the ocean."

"Well, that's sorted then, is it?" asked Ellie. "Because I have no clue what you are talking about."

"Actually, you do have a clue," Annabeth said kindly. "You seem to be dreaming as me, whereas Danny is dreaming as Percy."

"What about me?" Leo whined. "I'm important too!"

Annabeth hushed him and continued, sending pointed glances at the Latino whenever he opened his mouth. "It's possible that there are other mortals out there who are having dreams and unfortunately don't have their local demigod directing them in what to do."

My thoughts immediately jumped to the thoughts of other people could be getting these dreams, these scarily real dreams, and not knowing what to do. I could imagine the panic, the worry as you wake up with these cuts and scratches that mysterious appear and completely heal just seconds after waking up. It would only install fear into your system, worrying that you were going insane. It wasn't a pretty picture, and one I would not want to experience. Parents that didn't understand what you were talking about, insisting that you were making it up.

My thought train was cut off by a cell phone ringing. We all looked around to try to finds the source of the noise, except for Annabeth who pulled out the offending object.

"Hello?" The blonde sounded exasperated as she heard the voice at the other end of the phone. I could hear a high pitched scream coming out of the phone.

"Yes, Percy is here. Put it on speaker? Fine, I'm doing it." Annabeth fiddled with her phone a bit then a high pitched voice screamed through the phone. "Renee is currently freaking out because she had a demigod dream."

Percy groaned, "Another?"

"Another?" The voice squeaked. "Who else?"

"Danny and Ellie have been experiencing the dreams as well, always looking through mine and Percy's perspectives." Annabeth replied, "Drew, ask her what she's seen."

"Ok, then. I'll call you back when I find out! Bye!" Annabeth slumped backwards against the tree, and rubbed her temple wearily.

"What does this mean?" she wondered aloud. "I thought that, maybe, Percy and I were really powerfully projecting our feelings and experiences unconsciously, but if other people are having the same dreams… This could mean that there's some dark source behind this."

Percy was fidgeting around, probably with worry, until he surged to his feet and began to pace under the tree instead. I'll admit it, I was utterly bewildered. But I could still pick up on the tangible sense of anticipation that hung in the air like a live thing. The demigods themselves looked, well, scared, not something that I would associate with people like themselves, who killed monsters and went on adventures. (Well, Leo didn't look particularly scared, but he was too busy playing around with some random twirls of metal, nuts and bolts…)

What was going to happen next?

Actually, something else happened first. There was a rustling in the bush nearby, and a rasping, hissing sound came from it.

Annabeth shot to her feet and stared, wild eyed, at the source of the noise.

Percy yanked, was that a pen?, out of his pocket, and held it loosely in his right hand, his thumb poised to flick the lid off. Oh, come off it! A _pen_. But, he did look kind of intimidating, in what could only be a well-practised battle stance, his hand with the pen in moving slowly over to his left wrist, where he wore a digital watch. What was he going to do now, time how long the fight was?

My best friend was a total fruitcake.

I then heard a flurry of flapping, and Percy rammed his finger on to the stopwatch button.

A large bronze shield sprung around the watch, and in the nick of time, too, as sparks flew off the shield as a fusillade of what looked like feathers struck the embossed bronze.

Annabeth gasped, but Percy had crouched behind the shield and was fine. The lid came off the pen, then, and a metre-long bronze sword leapt into his grip. I could hear Annabeth cursing herself quietly behind me, but my attention was on the fight going on few yards away. A flock of bronze birds were attacking Percy, but they weren't normal birds. For one, they launched their feathers like weapons. For two, their eyes weren't really eyes. But we were unarmed and helpless, only able to watch as Percy battled with the horde.

Just as everything started to go wrong, we had a small, Latino intervention. Leo was suddenly on his feet, and blasted fire at some of the birds. It wasn't long before they were all gone, either killed or fled in squawking confusion. Percy limped over, looking more tired than hurt. He still, somehow, managed to give us a ridiculous grin, though, which proved that he was alright. Annabeth's head was in her hands.

"Oh, Percy… I should have been there… And Stymphalian Birds too! Not the worst, but, still… Just because we're at school doesn't mean that I can leave my sword upstairs, and, but, what if you had been _killed?_ I mean it's not like we had any Frank Sinatra music either!"

"Annabeth, calm down. I'm fine, we're fine. You can't exactly walk around with a scabbard on your belt anyway, can you? Look, if it was that bad, you would have had time to run and get your sword. I could have staved off any monsters for long enough for all of you to equip yourselves and get out."

Annabeth looked at him miserably. For once the barriers behind her grey eyes had fallen, and she was so different when she was vulnerable like this.

"You know that I'd never leave you to fight them alone."

"You know you would if you had to. Even if you were just going to get a weapon." He sat down beside her, wincing slightly. Immediately the moment was past.

"Percy! You're hurt!"

"No, it's fine, no Annabeth, _seriously_ , I'm fine."

"No you most certainly are not! You will stay right there while I-"

"No, I won't, and for the last time, seriously, I'm fine. Stop worrying."

"Yeah, right. There's a feather sticking out of your arm."

"It's a _feather_. It's gone."

"You are impossible sometimes, you know."

"Love you too." The two burst out laughing, but in a kind of melancholy way. "Anyway. I totally know. I had to _somehow_ get kicked out of so many schools."

"Wait!" Ellie cut in. "Sorry to interrupt what was clearly a very important argument, but, Percy, you got kicked out of loads of schools?"

"Sure I did. One every year until freshman." Sorry what? Wait, he told me that in Freshman year. That feels like a long time ago.

"Wow. OK, sorry for interrupting, go back to arguing now."

Piper spoke for the first time in the whole conversation. "Ellie, those two will now either argue it out until dusk or be totally unable to stay mad at each other. Just you watch." She grinned wryly, but was right. They weren't going to stay mad at each other for much longer. Maybe a few more insults…

"You know, Annabeth, you are stubborn sometimes."

"Yeah, but at least I didn't get the nosebleed that started the apocalypse! Now you will stay _right here_ while I go and fetch the ambrosia."

Percy sighed. "Whatever. You win. I'll stay. Woof." That earned a glare, but he stayed put, while Annabeth jogged back up towards the dorms.

I turned on him, then, wanting to know why that last comment had made Percy stop, and what the hell Annabeth had been banging on about. I glanced down at him. He wasn't looking his best, it had to be admitted, but he wasn't looking that ill.

"She had to play the nosebleed card! It was one time!"

Hazel frowned at him. Where did she come from? "Yeah, one rather important time… Where you woke up our grandmother and almost killed us all. At least Annabeth tried to keep the blood off the ground."

"Look, it was an accident - and where did you spring from? It's not like you can shadow-travel. Is it?" Percy looked at her, confused.

"I was IMing Frank to see how he was getting on. And no, that particular talent is reserved for my brother, although he's still not _supposed_ to do it… You know, doctor's orders and all." Percy nodded, as if this was a perfectly valid explanation.

"Doctor's orders? And what the heck is shadow-travelling?" I asked, my head spinning with all of this confusing talk.

"Shadow travel is teleportation that children of the Underworld can do and um... my brother, Nico, almost melted into a puddle of shadow during the war. So he's under orders from the camp medics to not shadow travel for a month." How do you almost melt into a puddle of shadow?

I voiced my thoughts and Hazel just laughed at my question, "You'd be surprised. He was transporting a giant statue halfway across the world with two other people and he was their only means of transportation. He was overtired, and tried to do it again without one of the others, who lent him strength, right in front of one of the medics, and very nearly became what he was manipulating. Not the wisest move ever. Will now keeps him under a close eye and gives him daily check ups. Any shadow-travelling, and he'll be chained to his bed in the Hades cabin until he decides to listen to reason. However amusing that might be, he will be even less impressed than the time the Stoll brothers nicked his sword, and he, cabin, and sword all ended up spray-painted a hideous pink that only the Aphrodite girls would even think of wearing. And then we all wondered why it sounded like someone was being murdered in the Hermes cabin at three in the morning."

"Oh, right. Well, you have just implied that Hazel here is a daughter of Hades, am I right? If so, what kind of cool powers do you have?"

"Well, I'm strictly a daughter of Pluto because I'm Roman, but yeah, the death god. I am more the riches side of Pluto than the death side. My brother can shadow-travel and control skeletons and banish souls to the Underworld and the like, but I, instead, can find my way, well, perfectly, underground, and I can sense and control precious metals and jewels. Once I defeated some Amazons with a cabinet of silver friendship bracelets."

"That was pretty awesome," Percy admitted, in a way that suggested that he would have sounded more enthusiastic if he had the energy. "And it wasn't just a few Amazons. There were Frank and I, getting poked with various pointy things if we opened our mouths, and the cabinet just exploded and the guards didn't even have time to react. One second, they were in control, then the next they were hanging over the edge of the catwalk suspended by a string of silver bracelets. Then came the whole Arion incident. You really need to wash that horse's mouth out, Hazel. His language is atrocious. Ooh, fancy word alert."

That would have been funnier if Percy hadn't been speaking in somewhat monotonous tones of exhaustion. I was beginning to feel a little concerned about him. No need, though, because Annabeth ran over at that exact moment, holding a small box with a red cross on, and dragging Will Solace behind her.

"Dude, why are you still here?" Percy said groggily before almost passing out in my arms. God(s), this dude was heavy.

"I was just in the act of leaving when someone grabbed me and told me you were dying on the front lawn." He rubbed his arm ruefully. Annabeth seemed to have grabbed him pretty hard, because there were four pale red finger lines there. "Right, ambrosia." Annabeth rummaged in the pack and Percy obediently opened his mouth to allow her to place the lemon square in his cakehole.

Will then proceeded to pour a golden liquid on to the cuts, but didn't place it in Percy's mouth this time, or bind them in any way. In fact, they appeared to be healing before my very eyes.

"Idiot, can't go a week without being attacked." Will rolled his eyes. "Don't keep me too long, Argus is waiting. At least, it's probably Argus. Could be Jules Albert if he's busy."

"Not true..." Percy trailed off as he contemplated what he was saying. "Not normally true, anyway. Anyway, I wonder what that flock of Stymphalian Birds were doing here anyway. They are obedient to Ares, right? And sure, I haven't exactly give Ares reason to like me in the past, but I don't think that he'd try to kill me with those."

"Reason to like you?" Annabeth choked. "You challenged him to a duel!"

"Yeah, not my finest moment, challenging the war god to a fight. It must've been my ADHD."

"It's always your ADHD, Seaweed Brain. Except for the nosebleed. I'm not entirely sure _how_ you can blame that one on your ADHD."

"Rome wasn't, either." Annabeth smiled at him slightly.

"No, I knew that." Hazel cocked her head, before going in for the joke to break the sad quality to the conversation.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, quite sure, Hazel. I don't _think_ that even my ADHD would lead me to do that. Only one thing could have made me do that. Good job I did, too. I don't think that you'd have got me out of there conscious if I hadn't."

"You've got a point there, Aquaman," Leo cut in.

"Do _not_ call me Aquaman, or I will bash you on the nose with Riptide, and the last person I did that too ended up with a nose that closely resembled a squashed tomato."

"Who was that?" asked Leo, ever curious.

"You wouldn't know him. Ethan Nakamura, but famously called Nawaka by Iapetus. That was before I threw him in the Lethe. Iapetus, I mean. Ethan was killed by Kronos, and died a hero, despite the fact that he very nearly killed Annabeth, and betrayed me on about six occasions."

"Nice guy," Piper remarked sourly.

"Yes, son of Nemesis."

"How many eyes did he have?" asked Leo, his face suddenly very pale.

"One, why?"

"That was the son Nemesis talked about. And he thought that an eye was a tough price…"

"What are you banging on about, Valdez?" asked Percy, looking decidedly better already.

He put his hand back to stand up, but was shoved back by Will.

"Doctor's orders are to stay there for at least another five minutes, to have an early night tonight, and not to go getting into scraps with any other monsters, especially poisonous ones-"

"But poisonous ones are my specialty!"

"-, considering there won't be a trained medic to save your life again, and to generally be careful. No I must go, or my ride will have gone. Make sure he doesn't do anything that is cosmically stupid, like single-handedly take on a drakon or antagonising gods that already don't like him or something, please Annabeth."

"I'll try, but I can't promise anything."

"That'll do. Bye now." And with that, he hared off across the lawn towards the main school entrance.

"Right, well, what are you going on about then?"

"I'm not sure I want to talk about it, dude."

"Was it to do with what-we-have-told-you-a-million-times-that-it-wasn't-your-fault-but-you- still-blame-yourself?"

"Yes, a deal I struck with Nemesis. Which, come to think of it, was probably a very bad idea in the first place." He didn't look like he wanted to talk about it, and was looking at the ground, attacking the grass rather than something mechanical, which proved that something was up.

"Perhaps. I mean, the goddess of revenge is hardly going to go round giving people help out of the goodness of her heart, is she? In fact, it sounds like something I'd do, not that that's a good thing or anything. Oh well, please continue."

"The fortune cookie. Hazel knows what I'm talking about. I broke it to get the access code to the control Archimedes sphere to save Frank and Hazel, but the cost-" his voice broke. Percy looked him in the eye, which was difficult.

"Valdez, look at me." Leo slowly lifted his face to Percy's, his eyes filled with sorrow. "It wasn't your fault. It was Gaia's fault, Arachne's fault. It was sooner Annabeth's fault or my fault than your fault, what happened there. Stop blaming yourself. It was my decision."

"I know, but it just still feels like… I saved Frank and Hazel, but lost you and Annabeth. That was how the deal worked."

"Then it was _Nemesis'_ fault."

"It wasn't. _I_ broke the cookie." Broke the cookie? What the heck was he on about?

"It's not worth arguing about it, is it? It wasn't your fault. And besides, it's not like we can change it, anyway. It's gone and done. I don't hate you for it." Leo sighed, but didn't argue. He went back to murdering the grass instead.

Ellie glared at his hands and the shreds of grass in them. "My soccer coach used to do that. The field is now just a mud patch." Leo stared at her incredulously, before going back to fiddling with a pipecleaner he'd pulled out of his toolbelt. Strange child.


	17. Ellie IX

**Hi again! We're back! Yay! Sorry, we kind of lied before (a couple of chapters ago), when we said that Drew would play a useful part in that chapter. Well, we were wrong. It's this chapter, instead. And, onto the reviews:**

 **Alicia - Thanks for saying you liked it, especially as it's one of our worst chapters with various plot holes - all of which you've pointed out for us. We can't believe how much you're reviewing this fic - you're honestly amazing! We don't mind you pointing out these plot holes in any future chapters (hopefully the later chapters aren't quite so dreadful).**

 **AnnaUnicorn (we're going to work through your reviews systematically) -**

 **We're glad that you thought that the fic was pretty cool at first (whether you think that now is a different matter), while Percabeth is guaranteed endgame. Though it could get kind of angsty later on (there are deaths etc and Nyx does get pretty angry. But there is no Relationship Drama™**

 **They are still best friends; it just sort of gave the Awkward Silence™ vibe for the end of the chapter. Also this fic is set before ToA, because it was written two years ago and we didn't know what happened in ToA then.**

 **Yes, to begin with. But there is action later on. We just need to sort of set the scene a bit.**

 **We know, but none of us are Rick, so we can't exactly have his voice, can we?**

 **Nope. We just can't write fluff, so sorry.**

 **Quihi - There really isn't any difference between our two main OCs, like, honestly, while we were writing at first, we would sometimes have to check who we were writing as, which probably isn't, well, good. Besides, they are cardboard. They don't have personality anyway. Thank you for putting up with them.**

 **Hi (Guest) - Thanks, but as we've said in various comments, we're not very good at writing fluff.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

* * *

Ellie POV

So these people were talking about the summer they didn't want to talk about. Wow. And Percy was finally permitted to stand up? Well, he didn't get mown down by Annabeth again, so I assumed that he was allowed. It was then Annabeth's phone went off again, but at least this time we weren't under the impression that we were under some form of attack.

"Yes?" The same high-pitched screaming came out of the phone as before. Annabeth winced and held the phone as far away from her ear as possible whilst still being able to hear it. "What? What was that? I can't hear you. I CAN'T HEAR YOU. Oh, by the gods, I CAN'T HEAR YOU AND YOU DON'T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO HEAR ME EITHER." She then promptly hung up. "Where will Drew and Renee be on a Saturday morning?"

o0O0o

That is how we ended in front of a dormitory which apparently was right next to mine.

"Hi Drew," Annabeth said airily. "Sorry, the connection on the call was awful, so I guessed that you might be here. What were you trying to tell me?"

"Renee was having those bad dreams. _Again_. I was _trying_ to tell you what happened, but you were deaf and couldn't hear me."

"So, what was in the dream?"

Renee blinked uncertainly, clearly not used to being addressed by a 'nerd'. "Um, it was in a circular room with two others. It was steadily filling up with water, and I was trying to save the two boys, but the water was draining our strength and we weren't gonna be able to keep going. Then a thundercloud appeared at the top of the room, and it started to fill up even faster with the poisonous water. Then, I was yelling, but I couldn't hear what. But the boys had a horn between them, and were trying to do something, but whatever it was it wasn't working. Then I heard the only words in the whole dream: 'You have to offer yourself up, imagine all your strength leaving you. Like you're already dead. A sacrifice.'

"Then the horn suddenly blasted out water, and blew us back against the wall. Then, as we hit the roof, it emptied suddenly. We were tossed over and over, and landed eventually on the floor. Then it ended. Is that okay?"

Percy looked decidedly green after this description. Annabeth looked worriedly out if the corner of her eye, as if she feared that he might keel over at a moment's notice. Piper was the one who spoke, "Yep, I do know that particular incident, and I think Percy does too…"

Percy nodded slightly, still looking rather unwell. I wondered briefly if those feathers had been poisoned. But, no, maybe it was just a particularly bad section of the 'summer of doom'. "It was just before we went to the Colosseum. We were attacked by a group of angry nature spirits in a shrine ten feet beneath Rome, we were actually drowning in the water there, not like gasping for air."

"So…" Renee's voice was small. "The dreams I've been having, they're _real_? Like, they actually happened?"

"Yep, sorry. They are probably true. If you have any more, do contact Annabeth and tell her what happened, because we want to keep track of what scenes are being seen, and we'd also like to identify them, just to make sure," Percy clarified.

I felt a slight sick feeling in my stomach. I hadn't told them what I had seen in the first dream, only that I'd had one. And that dream was the worst of them all, what with the crimson landscape and the empty face sucking in those around it. And the black and silver elevator. And the creepy lady and the figure of darkness at the top…

o0O0o

The next day, and we were all ready to be told what the demigods wanted to do with us. Obviously, I was likely that we'd be sidetracked into excitedly asking questions about adventures, but…

Yeah, I was right. We had just resumed our normal positions under the tree when Danny started the asking. I had noticed that Annabeth had attached a scabbard to her belt in the morning, which undoubtedly contained a sword, which didn't do much to make me feel like we weren't in imminent danger of death.

"Perce, this is totally random, but, I don't think you ever answered Ellie's question from ages ago. Do you have a tattoo on your left forearm?" Percy seemed slightly taken aback by this.

"Well, yes, although it's not technically a tattoo."

"Why? And how do you have a tattoo that's not a tattoo?"

"It's a long-ish story…"

"I've got time."

"Alright then. Basically, it's not a tattoo because it wasn't done in ink. It's a brand, but that's beside the point. I've got it because I spent time at Camp J, which I should probably tell you is short for Camp Jupiter and is the Roman equivalent of Camp Half-Blood. At Camp Half-Blood, they give you these bead necklaces for each year, whereas at Camp Jupiter, you get these." He held up first the leather thong around his neck, on which there were five beads, and then his left arm, where the black marks were clearly visible: the letters SPQR, a trident, and a single stripe. "SPQR stands for Senatus Populus Que Romanus," he went on, "the Senate and People of Rome. It's like the motto of the Roman legion. The old one and the new one, that is. Trident because I'm a son of Poseidon slash Neptune, and the single stripe for one year of service, or, in my case, a supposedly memorable deed."

"Supposedly?" Hazel and Peter choked at almost exactly the same time (Peter had decided to tag along today).

"What?" he asked, innocently.

Peter face-palmed in a painful-sounding manner. "You trekked all the way up to Alaska, retrieved the eagle, killed a giant-"

"That was Frank!" Percy interrupted.

Hazel went on as if he hadn't spoken. "-acted as translator for a temperamental but awesome horse, took us on a boat trip, killed a bunch of gryphons, got us to hide under giant blue butts, drowned a ghostly _legion_ , let us think that you were dead, got Ella to safety, fished about a ton of Imperial Gold out of the sea, learned how to use the eagle," she paused for a breath. "And to top it all, got crowned Praetor. That's _supposedly_ memorable, huh?"

Percy at least had the grace to look a little sheepish.

"Woah, woah," I moaned, confused. "You lost me at horses."

"That horse needs someone who doesn't mind losing a hand in the process to wash his mouth out with soap and water!" Percy shook his head despairingly. "It's a good job you can't understand him. You'd faint at some of the language that he uses."

"I had _my_ mouth washed out for being rude at school before!"

"Stop arguing about Arion's choicey language!" Annabeth scolded. "Other people have no idea what you're talking about, and, to be brutally honest, we do not care how rude Hazel's horse is. Percy is the only one who can understand him, so he is the only one who can moan about his use of language... And that's _final_ ," she added, with a pointed glare at her boyfriend. "No buts."

"Not even blue butts?"

"Not even- Wait, what in the name of Zeus are you saying?"

Percy grinned in the direction of his girlfriend, "Don't you remember when Kronos got squished by a Hyperborean?" Kronos, the Titan King? Got squished by a hyper-thing.

Noticing the confused glances I was giving them, Hazel decided to explain what the Hyper Boring thing is. "It's a frost giant that's big and blue, basically a giant smurf."

Percy switched his gaze from Annabeth to Hazel. "Since when do you know what a smurf is?"

The coloured girl rolled her eyes at the son of Poseidon, "Since you made me watch it. That Gargamel dude was freaky. He reminded me of Gale the farting weasel."

Gale the farting weasel? I'm actually starting to worry about their sanity. "How does Gargamel remind you of a farting weasel?"

Hazel shrugged and smiled angelically at me.

Peter coughed, "Back to the point, Percy that wasn't _supposedly_ memorable. It was memorable; if not downright inconceivable!"

Annabeth smirked at the blond boy, "I do not think that word means what you think that word means."

Percy suppressed a laugh at his girlfriend. "Did you just quote Inigo Montoya?"

"My cousin made me watch it about twenty times as a kid, ten of them at the Great Thanksgiving Schism." The entire group raised their eyebrows at that and caused Annabeth to blush. "Didn't I tell you that my dad's family don't talk to us anymore?"

There was an awkward silence before Leo burst out with "Yay! My family's messed up! Your family's messed up! All our families are messed up!" This resulted in him being pushed into a ditch by Danny. "Oi, what was that for?"

The rest of us laughed and I suddenly realised that these were exactly the kind of friends I would want to have for the rest of my life.

* * *

 **Whoop, whoop! That is the end of Part 1 of this fic (there are four parts, I don't think we mentioned that before). And here on out the Points of View changes are much more random, changing in accordance to where the action is (and occasionally to the POV of a random character that we forgot existed).**

 **Don't forget constructive criticism is happily accepted, but please make sure that you specify what we can improve instead of just telling us something that's wrong.**

 **We'll try to improve on it throughout the fic, when we're editing it. Well, if we're alive after tomorrow (we're going paintballing).**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	18. Butch I

**Hello! Sorry we're a bit late with the update, we've had various homework's etc. to do and we have all of our end of year tests at the moment. However, it is official that on Monday we finished writing the entire fic! Yes! And also, today is the two year anniversary since we started writing this. That means that (after having the inevitable existential crises) we have decided to write a series of oneshots to serve as a sequel of sorts. So, if you see any plotholes, any missing scenes that you want, anything at all to fit with the storyline - prompt us in a review.**

 **And now we move onto Part Two, where the POVs are all over the place. First, we have Butch from the Iris Cabin.**

 **We're putting up two chapters today to 'celebrate' (should we be celebrating two years of procrastination?). First up is Butch, then Lacy.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Alicia - Thanks for liking it! We can't really say much more apart from the fact that you've been an awesome reviewer!**

 **Quihi - Wait, that was banter? Thanks for finding it funny - we have no idea whether it is or isn't.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Butch Walker POV

When I received a call from Annabeth, asking for her and eight others to be collected from Goode House School, I damn right refused: I wanted my winter break too!

There was no way I could fit ten of us into the newly fixed chariot!

She was adamant, and kept texting me in an irritating fashion until I finally relented. Yes, I would pick them up, but I would have to take two trips. And I would need Percy's pegasus (actually, I wouldn't, but it was worth asking for a few favours, and besides, he's a nice pegasus… And I fancied some doughnuts, and Blackjack's always a good excuse to buy doughnuts).

So _that_ was how I ended up outside Goode at six in the morning, the weekend of the start of the Christmas holidays, freezing cold and unable to see far due to heavy mist. And waiting for the first half of the group - the girls.

Apparently the boys couldn't come for a while, due to the fact that three out of five of them had forgotten to return a paper. I was slightly puzzled about the fact of there being five boys, rather than just Percy.

The first girl out of the building had flaming red hair and brown eyes. She jogged her knee nervously as she, also, watched the entrance to the boarding school. Then came Annabeth with her blonde hair in its usual ponytail, then Hazel Levesque and finally Piper.

"Um... Percy, Leo and their roommates should be here in a minute, but I'm assuming that you'll take us first and come back for them."

"Leo? As in Leo Valdez? But he's dead; the whole of camp knows that!" Shock caused words to fall out of my mouth like a waterfall.

"The whole of camp was wrong, apparently."

I was slightly in shock, but did manage to take up the reins, and start flying towards Long Island. Ellie, as I learned, took flying a lot better than Leo, that git, did.

I dropped them off at the camp border, next to Thalia's tree. Then I returned (of course I was late; I did have to feed the pegasi), but so were they, and eventually Percy appeared with, lo and behold, the dead man (or midget) walking himself, Leo Valdez, along with Will Solace and two others that I didn't know.

I was so surprised that I came to a rather ungainly landing, and the pegasi snorted, which made Percy smile.

"Why are you smiling, Perce? What did they say to you?"

"Blackjack wants doughnuts and the rest are just saying that they are delighted to meet the prince, and his, wait, _nephew_?"

Percy held out his hands in surrender gesture as all of the pegasi started neighing to him. "Just one."

Beck, one of the pegasi that was born (and named) after the Titan War, started whinnying by himself.

"No way, are you kidding me? I don't want to be an uncle!"

Leo tapped him on the arm, a confused expression on his face. "What do you mean, nephew? Because that would mean... Oh, that would explain... But why can't he hear the horses? I mean, if he _is_ your nephew..."

Danny was seemingly obtuse as to who they were talking about. I mean, who here does not know who their godly parent is?

"Danny, I think we know who your godly parent is."

Danny glanced at him in surprise. "First of all, can you explain why you can speak to horses?"

"Oh, right. It's to do with being a son of Poseidon. I can do it and so can your dad." Percy gave Danny a meaningful glance.

"I'm your... Yeah right!" He made a series of choking noises. "You're kidding, aren't you? I'm most certainly _not_ your nephew! You're younger than me!"

Leo elbowed me. I glared at the midget. "What do you want?"

"Do you think he's worked out that Piper's mom is cheating on my dad with Frank's dad?"

I'd completely forgotten about that weird love triangle.

I was about to reply, before I was being cut off by Danny shouting in a somewhat strangled fashion, "Well, who's my dad then? Can you at least tell me?"

Percy chewed his lip thoughtfully, as if wondering how to break the news to the poor guy. "My jerk of a half brother. Triton."

Danny looked at Percy as if he had just grown a second head. "Your… half-brother?"

"On the godly side. He doesn't like me much. Scratch that, he doesn't like anyone much. Especially not me. I think it's because I am the result of dad's affair. I believe that he wants to take my head off, or similar."

"You… what, where, when, how, why?"

"Chill, man, gods don't have DNA, so we're technically not related. And anyway, Blackjack says his hooves are freezing off, and if we don't get airborne and give him doughnuts soon, he will go on strike, and, I dunno about you, but I don't fancy the chances of the other pegasi dragging him along behind us. In short, get on the chariot before I kill you. Nah, I won't kill you. Get on the chariot before I ask Leo to chuck a sphere at you, rendering you helpless in the tangles of a bronze net." He smiled disarmingly at the guy he had just threatened, as if this was totally normal.

Danny got into the chariot. Wise move, considering that I didn't doubt that Percy would carry out his threat.

That makes him sound evil, doesn't it? He's not evil, just tends to go ahead with what he says. In fact, he's usually very careful about how he acts. Too careful, perhaps. But he seemed perfectly cheerful at the moment, and I didn't want to spoil his good(ish) mood.

o0O0o

Danny broke the silence on the chariot. "Ok, so I'm a demigod, like you people."

"Yeah," Percy explained. "Although you're not a particularly powerful demigod. No, don't _look_ at me like that. It's no bad thing. Most monsters will decide not to kill you and go for someone else instead. It really sucks being a Big Three kid, sometimes. Never get a break."

"So, what powers do I get?"

"I dunno. We don't have a cabin for Triton at the mo. We didn't know he even had demigod kids. You'll probably be staying in my cabin, at least temporarily, because Triton is a son of Poseidon."

"That means I'll be lodging with you?"

"Yeah, and my Cyclops brother Tyson if he's around."

"You-you, you have a Cyclops brother?"

"Yeah, kind of. It's usually best not to go into details on the godly families. I mean, if we were to go into detail, I'm technically the uncle of all the pegasi on this chariot and related to a sheepskin rug that's in Thalia's tree."

"What?" Danny spluttered.

"Yeah. No details is always best."

Leo wasn't exactly helping matters by guffawing hard, and clinging on to the side of the chariot for balance. Will was shaking his head and talking to the other dude I don't know, who had by now been introduced as Peter.

I deigned to not get involved, just in case.

I turned to Peter, trying to work out why he was here. "Who's your godly parent, then?"

Peter shrugged in response and stopped leaning on the side of the chariot. He coughed violently to disguise his answer: "Hgghppoollogh."

"Pardon?"

"I said I'm a legacy of Apollo."

I raised an eyebrow; that sounded familiar. Oh, I know, it's what the augur from Camp Jupiter was. "Like the Octavian dude."

Peter gave a head gun. "Exactly like him. Too much like him."

Percy sent a glance our way from where he was steering the chariot. "Octavian was his full blooded brother."

"Was?" asked Danny, perplexed.

"Yeah, he, well, we _say_ he committed suicide, but he was really just trying to kill Leo here. Went crazy about Roman honour and stupid stuff like that." Percy didn't look too pleased about the resurfacing of that particular memory.

"He didn't succeed, then, did he?"

"Actually…" Leo squirmed awkwardly. "He did. The onager scored a direct hit on Festus and therefore blew me sky high. But, I suppose you could say that I cheated death, and tah-dah!" He gestured to his own skinny frame. "Still here!"

Percy shook his head theatrically, and asked, "Are we nearly there yet?"

"Yep; we're just coming in now." This time I landed rather more smoothly than I had last time I had transported Leo somewhere (not in the lake…), and the smoothly oiled wheels rolled to a stop as the pegasi slowed to a halt, their hooves throwing sparks and their breath misting in the chilly air.

I threw the reins and jumped down, ignoring the guests and proceeding to untether the pegasi (horses first, people second, pumpkins third, and Leo Valdez last of all).

Will hopped out of the chariot with years of practice.

Percy had no problem following my example; he was tall and well practised. Peter coped pretty well (I mean, how different can a Roman chariot be?), too. Leo fell over (haha). Danny goggled at the ground, and was helped by Percy (who didn't help Leo).

We had barely touched down a minute, when a huge, slightly creaky shape bounded over the cabins and landed in front of Leo, clicking and whirring loud enough to wake the gods, his tail lashing rather too enthusiastically from side to side.

In fact, he managed to knock over the drilled-in basketball hoop that had stood for as long as I had been at camp.

"Festus!" Leo cried out in joy."Buddy! How's the leg? You being fed alright?"

Poor Danny looked like he was about to faint. "Where's Ellie and the girls? I want to be with someone normal for a change."

I couldn't blame him, really. It's not like it's everyday that you meet a dude whose best friend is a very large and dangerous bronze dragon. Oh, I think I also forgot to mention the even more dangerous sister, who was storming towards us, woken by the dragon forcing his way out of the cabin.

"Is that Leo?" Nyssa stomped out of the Hephaestus cabin, followed by a very sleepy Harley. "Idiot!" The African-American girl slapped her (hyper) brother around the face. "You came back to life without telling us!"

Harley gave a yawn and rubbed his eyes disbelievingly. "Leo?" For once, Leo didn't seem to have a smart comeback. He shrank away from his sister slightly, as if expecting her to hit him again. She did. Nyssa's not one to be reckoned with at the best of times, and when she's angry, she's worse than Festus when he was on the rampage, and he rendered Jake Mason in a full body cast for weeks. "YOU LITTLE-"

"Nyssa, chill," Percy said, his arms up in a gesture of peace. "Don't kill your brother. He's only just come back from the dead."

"I suppose you're right," she sighed, before staring daggers at Leo again. "But I just couldn't bear to believe that we'd lost another sibling in an explosion in the space of a year."

Percy stiffened slightly at that comment, but otherwise seemed okay. Of course, he'd been there, after all, when Beckendorf died. Still blamed himself.

But Nyssa had moved on already, and was chiding Festus. "You woke the whole cabin up by bulldozing the doors, you know!" Festus hung his head, and clicked a few times. Nyssa cocked her head. It seemed that Leo remained the only camper to speak Creak and Squeak.

"He apologises, but says he couldn't wait to see his awesome friend again."

"Did he really say that?"

"Yes! Well, not the awesome part, but yes!"

Danny's head had been darting to and fro like he was watching a really good tennis match during the argument, but he finally stopped, and blinked to regain his balance.

Nyssa also blinked, as she finally seemed to notice Danny and Peter.

"Who're you?"

"Um, I'm Danny, and I-" he was cut off by a racket. Word got around fast. We'd woken everyone up, it seemed, and we were the centre of attention. Oh dear. Nyssa grinned, and bodily lifted her tiny brother and tossed him onto the dragon's back as if he weighed nothing.

Festus shot a joyous column of flame into the sky at being reunited with his master. Some of the other campers had by then arrived, and together threw Percy onto Blackjack, who proceeded to try and buck him off, to the amusement of everyone present. (Including the others I had dropped off. They had come down from the tree to see what the commotion was about.)

Annabeth was laughing so hard she was bent double, until Percy grabbed her by the wrist as Blackjack shot past, and yanked her up behind him. She shrieked then, in surprise more than anything else. The behaviour wasn't really like Blackjack; he was usually quite obedient to Percy, but he was probably being egged on by the other pegasi, as Percy was yelling at random, "What did I do? Don't encourage him!" This, of course, was at no one in particular.

Eventually, Chiron galloped over to see what all of the noise was about. He stared at the pegasi and then at Festus, who had a curly-haired elf sitting between his bronze spinal plates. He blinked in surprise. "Is that Leo Valdez?"

"Indeed it is!" called Leo happily.

"You should be dead, you know."

"Yep! But I had the physician's cure and all that, so I'm fine."

Chiron shook his head, and then turned to our newest camper. "And who are you, son?"

"Um, Daniel Robinson."

I almost laughed at the awkwardness; recently introduced to the world of the gods and then suddenly he's speaking to a centaur. I don't blame him for being overwhelmed.

"It is too much to hope that you know who your godly parent is?"

Danny held out his hands. "I've been told that others think that they know."

"Who?"

"Triton," Percy interjected, fairly brightly, but not that cheerfully.

"Did I hear you right, Mr Jackson? Triton, you say?"

Percy nodded enthusiastically from where he was sitting atop his pegasus, who had finally stopped rearing and kicking like a Bucking Bronco. "Yes, my brother. Doesn't like me much. Very rude, actually."

Behind him, Annabeth appeared to do a spit take, but with air instead of water. "Triton? He has demigod children?"

"Yes, I understand that he's not the politest, but it really isn't the best idea to be rude about gods, even if they are your siblings on the godly side." Chiron chided gently.

"True, but he wants to kill me anyway, so…"

They were then interrupted by cry of "Brother!" and Tyson ran over, his arms outstretched.

I didn't know he was here. Percy smiled slightly, and jumped off Blackjack so that he wouldn't get flattened too.

Danny and the red-headed girl, Ellie, were watching all of this with eyes as wide as moons. Danny leaned over to me. "Does that make him my uncle?"

I shrugged in answer. I didn't want to think about all of that stuff again; it gives me a headache.

"Possibly. But if he's here, you'll actually be able to see the floor in Cabin 3. Percy's not the most organised roommate,-" Danny snorted at the comment - "but Tyson's pretty tidy."

Chiron trotted over to Danny again, who had moved away from the stampeding Cyclops.

"Welcome to Camp Half-Blood! As Triton currently doesn't have a cabin, you will have to stay with Percy and Tyson in Cabin 3 for now. But I seem to gather that you and Percy are very good friends, so it should be fine. Am I correct?"

Danny nodded dumbly.

Chiron seemed to understand. He must be used to kids being astounded and slightly frightened by a bunch of tough-looking teengaers wielding swords and befriending large metal dragons. Danny was taking it pretty well. He hadn't keeled over or run off yet. Ellie appeared to be attempting to back into the non-existent corner, but was otherwise alright too.

"Ok then. Cabin 3 is the blue one. Second on the left from the centre. Percy will show you."

Danny ran off after Percy, and Chiron turned to Ellie. "Now Elizabeth, do you know who your parent is? Have you been claimed?"

Ellie looked bewildered.

"No, not yet," Annabeth cut in. "Shouldn't be long, though. When's breakfast?"

* * *

 **We hope you liked it, though we do know that this massive thing can be confusing at times. Don't forget to review if you liked it, or even if you didn't. We live off of reviews and constructive criticism. Plus, it would be nice to be acknowledged during our end of years (aka a living nightmare).**


	19. Lacy I

**Ok, so this is chapter 2 for today! Lacy's POV.**

* * *

Lacy Winters POV

Christmas break began with a large metal dragon putting his foot through the Aphrodite cabin's roof. That could only mean one thing. Leo's back.

 _Whoopdeedoo. Nyssa's gonna kill him because he's not dead and then he'll be dead_ , my brain supplied helpfully.

And, sure enough, Nyssa's foghorn tones of fury echoed through the pink walls and torn roof. If Festus hadn't woken everyone, that had.

Drew wasn't in (thank goodness!), but there were plenty of other campers who would be 'vewy upswet' to have their beauty sleep disturbed. Let Operation Stay Out Of The Way Of Rampaging Aphrodite Campers ensue.

Then a very breathless Mitchell came running into the cabin.

"It's Valdez, alright," he panted. "Nyssa's stopped murdering him and he's now in the middle of a stampede of excitable campers on the back of his automaton. No one's knocked at Ares yet."

"Good," I said automatically. The last thing we needed was Clarisse electrocuting everyone with her spear.

"And, Piper, Percy, Annabeth and Will are back too! They're having a right party out there! There are two others with them as well. One of them looks like that psychopath who tried to attack the camp with the Romans. But he's dead, so that can't be right."

Mike, who had decided to stay at Camp Half-Blood after the Giant War, jumped out of his bed and gasped.

"Peter!" he cried in alarm.

"What?" Confusion radiated throughout the entire cabin.

"What? I'm a Roman. Doesn't mean I'm crazy. Peter is, _was_ , Octavian's brother. Octavian, the augur who fired himself from the onager and-" he broke off.

We all knew what he was going to say: _and killed Leo Valdez._ But that had changed, hadn't it? If Leo was outside, then maybe… I jumped to my feet and rummaged for a pair of sensible shoes. Curse Mom's habit of changing sneakers into five-inch heels. I settled for a ridiculous pair of sparkly blue converse, that were pretty much the only things I could find which were flat.

Out I ran, dodging campers and running into some too. Out to Festus, the bronze dragon. I ran up his tail and prayed that he wouldn't flick it and send me flying.

"Leo! _Leo!"_

He turned, and started to see me stumbling along a now-rather-confused Festus' back.

"What do you want?"

"Did Octavian die?"

"Who?"

"Octavian. Killed teddy bears. Crazy. You know, him. He fired himself from the onager that-"

"Killed me? Well, I think he's dead. I mean, it killed any mortal in a half-kilometre radius. Including me. But, his twin brother's still alive. He's quite nice, really."

"What?"

"Yeah, I died. Then I came back. Live with it. Now you might wanna get off. Festus is giving you the five second countdown before he takes off. Three…. Two…"

I jumped, and landed squarely on the shoulders of my least favourite violent camper. Clarisse. Turns out she had got up, after all. And landing on her is a wonderful way to get yourself electrocuted, so I apologised and apologised. It didn't help.

"Why'd ya land on me, punk?"

"I-I-I- I didn't mean to!"

"Uh huh. Never do. What else you got to say for yourself, before I get out my friend."

"Uh, I-I-I-" Festus took off with a siren cry of ecstasy, and knocked a roof tile (from the Ares cabin) onto her head. I took the moment and ran for it, straight into Annabeth, who smiled down at my frizzy hair and smiled kindly.

"Lacy! You alright?"

"Clarisse, I, I kinda landed on her."

"You did? Good on you! Oops, who said that? C'mon, you can hide in our cabin. There's bound to be a cupboard that'll fit you."

"On second thoughts, come with me. I'll put you in the underground sleeping areas." It was Nyssa, strolling casually past. "Come on. Quick quick, and she won't notice."

"I'll stall her," Annabeth volunteered. Nyssa raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but didn't say anything along the lines of: _sure, but do you have a death wish?_

Annabeth squared her shoulders and began to push through the crowd towards Clarisse, who was no longer yelling curses at the flying dragon, and glaring around, undoubtedly looking for me. This might not end too well.

o0O0o

An hour and a half later, and it was safe to leave the Hephaestus cabin. Annabeth was alright, but a little dented in her pride. (Apparently, Clarisse had caught her around the face and knocked her out for a good minute. Unfortunately for Clarisse, that was the one part of the fight that Percy had seen…).

While in hiding, Annabeth had told me about her best friend Ellie, who was a demigod, though unclaimed, and probably not that powerful (She had been brought down after the fight. Annabeth, I mean.).

Clarisse was in the infirmary with a sore head after getting whacked with the hilt of Riptide.

The last person I'd heard Percy did that too was Ethan Nakamura, again after hurting Annabeth. Go figure. I told this to Annabeth, who laughed dryly.

"Yeah, he also knocked out Octavian, who we think was trying to sing soprano at the time. It's a surprisingly good way of getting rid of someone if you don't want to kill them, and Percy doesn't kill people. He's very careful about that."

She looked past me then, into the past. Can't have been a nice memory, for I could see fear and pain reflected in her turbulent grey eyes. She shook her head suddenly, and winced. "Ouch."

"Are you alright?"

"Fine, fine," she said, waving away my concern. "Clarisse really walloped me with that spear of hers. But don't worry. I'll be fine. I've been much worse. At least I can still see straight. Well, sort of."

I conked my head on the wall at that. She really was too proud to accept my help, but something told me that she'd let Percy. Well, you can't have everything, can you?

o0O0o

Mid-morning, and most people had got over the shock of the whole Leo-Valdez-isn't-dead malarky, and life was going on in it's usual not-very-normal fashion.

There weren't any organised sessions today, but there were still campers beating up dummies in the arena, and a few leaving to spend Christmas at home.

Peleus was play-fighting with Festus, who in turn was play-fighting with Mrs O'Leary, Percy's hellhound.

My sisters (apart from Piper) were doing makeovers, and had somehow managed to pin down Annabeth, who sat there, mutinous, while her hair was braided with pink bows.

Percy was showing Danny around camp, and Will was showing Ellie (although not until after he had been given a black eye after trying to help Clarisse…). Nico di Angelo was nowhere to be found, not that that was a huge surprise.

I chatted idly with the naiads, and helped with a few manicures. All in all, a pleasant day.

Not too crazy, considering we had just regained a dead camper. Dinner was interesting, though. Noisier than usual, for one (and that's difficult!). And for two, Chiron had an announcement to make, which is usually when something bad had happened.

Silence descended over the campers as he stamped his hoof for quiet.

"Today, we celebrate the return of Leo Valdez, who will be reinstated as head counselor for the Hephaestus cabin." The hall rang with cheering. "And secondly, we welcome two new campers, Daniel Robinson, son of Triton, and Elizabeth Myers, as yet unclaimed." More cheers. "And we also say hello again to Peter, who is a legacy of Apollo and twin to the late augur of Camp Jupiter."

The hall went deathly quiet.

"That's not how we welcome a visitor, is it?" called Chiron. "Peter's not going to gut teddy bears and lay siege to camp, is he?"

"No, I'm not." Peter had stood up and looked slightly uncomfortable. "I'm sorry for the actions of my elder brother, Octavian. He was a power-hungry jerk, as you all know. I'm not exactly grieving him. I'd just like to say thank you to the demigods who welcomed me at Goode. That's Percy, Leo, Will, Piper, Annabeth, Hazel and Ellie. You remained my friends, even when you discovered who I really was." He sat down.

Chiron smiled. The formal Roman in Peter was really showing, through.

The hall erupted into applause, making poor Peter blush from the tips of his ears down to his toes. I sighed, as I realised that there wasn't a campfire tonight, as it was a Thursday.

Well, might as well beat the rest of them to the bathroom.

* * *

 **Well, that's all for today! Just so you guys know, now we've finished writing the story we're starting a collection of one-shots set in this universe, and would really like some suggestions/prompts. We understand that this isn't that far into the story yet, so you might not really have any ideas, but we'll probably still be writing them when the last chapter of this fic goes up, so if you have any suggestions, just tell us. We are in dire need of inspiration.**

 **Don't forget to review!**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	20. Nico I

**Hello, again. We know: three chapters in two days (*gasp*!).**

 **This chapter is fairly short, and Nico's POV.**

 **We didn't get any reviews for the last two chapters, but if you'd like to review either those two or this one, we can reply to them in the next update. Don't forget one-shot suggestions if you have any!**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

 **Nico di Angelo POV**

A lot had changed when I arrived back at Camp Half-Blood after a couple of days in New Rome (don't judge, they want me there, too, and besides, I had to try and see Hazel, who wasn't there.).

For one, we had regained some senior campers, in the form of Percy, Annabeth, Piper and Will. For two, there was a dead guy in camp. Yep, Leo Valdez. And another dude, who looked a little too much like Octavian, but I remembered as Peter Bradley, the not-so-psycho other half of the Bradley twins. And Hazel. What was she doing _there?_

But I was still happy to regain my sister, and be with her.

"Hey, Nico!" Will ran up to me and hugged me. When released, I brushed off my now-crumpled T-shirt and grimaced.

"Hi, Will. Why was Hazel with you lot?"

Will raised an eyebrow, as if to say _you're kidding me, right?_ But I wasn't kidding. "Oh, didn't you know? She started at Court House, and that merged with Goode at the start of the year."

"So you've been with her for _an entire semester_ and didn't tell me?"

"You're not exactly easy to contact! You know that IM-ing doesn't work well underground! And whenever I call here instead, you are nowhere to be found! Don't you _dare_ accuse me of not trying."

"OK, whatever. I just figured that I'd know by now."

He shrugged. "Does it matter particularly, anyway? I mean, she's here _now._ "

"I know, I know. But I still wanted to know where my sister is. I get worried."

Will snorted at me in amusement. "Even though she's older?"

"No, she's only been alive for about fifteen years. Whereas I have been alive for eighty; therefore making me older." I smirked at Will. "Pffft, I've never been to school and I can still do math better than you!"

Will opened his mouth in protest to my statement. "You cannot! If you can, what's algebra?" He raised his eyebrows at me, again, as if to prove a point of me being stupid when it came to math.

"It's the letter thing that helps you work out what unknown numbers are."

The son of Apollo's mouth appeared to be dropping open slightly so I reached up and closed it.

"You do realise that, though I haven't gone to school, I am currently being tutored by Albert Einstein, Alan Turing _and_ Isaac Newton. Apparently I'm a good student."

"Yeah, but, but, but, they're-"

"Dead? Yeah, I know. I'm getting tutored in Dad's palace. Yes, he invited some dead tutors for me into his palace. Don't look so surprised. He _is_ the lord of the dead, in case you hadn't noticed."

"Sure, I hadn't noticed. You go summon dead people _and_ shadow-travel when I specifically told you not to!"

"What?"

Will's stern expression looked down at me, suggesting that, though I may be the son of the Lord of The Dead, I better not cross him. "Doctor's orders, remember? For the last time, I will have to chain you to your cabin with Celestial Bronze at this rate! You're not gonna get better if you keep pushing yourself beyond your limits!"

"I _don't_ push myself beyond my limits!"

"Yeah, right. I see the look on your face when you finish. You're trying not to keel over. Don't think I don't notice. I have been trained to look for certain signs in patients, and you are displaying most of them."

I groaned and shadow travelled to the Hades cabin. It's quicker than walking. Unfortunately, Will seemed to guess where I had gone, and five seconds later, stormed inside, just at the perfect time to watch me grab the bedpost for support, as a wave of nausea passed over me. Oops.

He really didn't look happy. "That's it! You're coming with me!"

"Wha-agh!" I yelped as he grabbed my arm and yanked me bodily over to Hazel.

"You're brother's been an idiot again!" he shouted to my sister.

Oh, sure. Tell the whole camp _and_ the overprotective sister! Hazel blinked at me once in confusion, before her expression hardened and she sighed. "What have you done _now_?"

"Shadow-travelled," Will answered curtly. "He is going to kill himself one of these days."

"What? I only went to the Hades cabin!"

"Yes, and then you keeled over. _No more death boy stunts_! Or I _will_ chain you."

"You won't."

"I can, and I will. Last chance."

I promptly shadow-travelled to the top of Thalia's pine tree, figuring that I would be safe up there. I could hear Will calling me some rather unattractive names, but was focusing on not falling out, as all of my limbs turned to jelly. Maybe he was right. I hadn't stopped after my over-exertions, and wasn't recovering fast, although I wasn't becoming quite so unsubstantial now after travelling.

And I would have to face him at some stage. It wasn't like I could sit up here forever. The only trouble would be getting down. I didn't want to admit it, but I didn't feel that I had the strength left for another shadow jump, even such a short one. My head felt as if someone had driven a spike through it, and I, from experience, knew that this would only get worse.

o0O0o

Come dinner, and I had finally mustered the courage and strength to shadow-travel back down from the tree, and apologised profusely (damn you, Newton, stop making me talk all British) to Will.

He glared at me, and said that I would have to be chained to my bedpost tonight and rattle like those ghosts from a Christmas Carol, so that I would be put off shadow-travelling because I didn't want to be chained all of the time. In theory, that was.

Yay. I decided, then, to stop shadow-travelling, under the pretence that I was a 'free spirit' and loathed the idea of chains, but really because I knew, deep down, that Will had been right all along (not that I would admit it to him, though).

After dinner was Capture the Flag, yay! The Big Three cabins (we worked as one, because there were so few of us) had decided to team up with Athena, Aphrodite, Iris and Tyche. Against everyone else (the other twenty or so cabins).

Yep, totally fair sides. Plus they got the war-crazies and the most competitive (Nike and Ares). Yippee Doo.

I, along all of the others, was prepared for a good smashing, despite our supreme strategists. And we had the best fighters in the form of four of the Seven (Percy, Annabeth, Hazel and Piper). Piper was really wicked with that sword of hers and Hazel was getting really good at controlling the Mist.

Unfortunately, we were against Hephaestus, and they had the dragon (although I think Chiron banned him after he almost flattened the opposing side) and camo armour. Plus Greek fire, Archimedes spheres, and goodness knows what other various tricks that would probably blow up before they served their purpose (apparently Leo had a 10-20% success rate).

This was so not going to be fair. At least this time Percy and Annabeth were on the same side. They have a tendency to seek each other out and duel until they both end up in the infirmary (partly because Clarisse enjoys nothing more than 'splitting up the lovebirds' i.e. electrocuting them both).

o0O0o

"One, two, three; let Capture the Flag begin!" Conch horns rang, and both sides leapt forwards to engage in the fight.

Except for the Big Three (Percy, Hazel and I), who stayed behind for a little while longer. We hoisted Hazel into the nearest tree, so that she could control the Mist undisturbed, while we tested Annabeth's brand new idea of tree-swinging, which involved using a fine, retractable rope with a mini grappling hook on the end to loop around trees and swing above the fighting unnoticed, until we were behind their lines. (We had somehow got an unsuspecting Leo to make them for us.)

After a short bit of swinging, we landed on the ground beyond the fighting, and began to search for the flag. Eventually, we spotted it.

It had been difficult, because Nemesis had won it, so the flag was black and harder to spot. It was situated on the top of a large and impossible-to-climb looking rock.

Percy scanned around, looking for guards, but there didn't seem to be any. Strange. They weren't allowed to be within fifteen metres, so they couldn't be on top of the rock, but still, it was weird, even if there was a nasty spring-loaded trap at the top.

"I'll get it," I volunteered. "I can shadow-travel, maybe?"

"Will will _murder_ you. I'll climb." I secretly thought _why are you climbing when you have your rope?,_ but I saw the logic.

If we were spotted with those ropes, our escape route would be blocked. I wasn't sure about the rock, because the sides looked pretty un-climbable, but heh-ho, we had to try.

Let's just say that it didn't go too well. Percy jumped up towards what looked like it could be a handhold, but, before he got there, a Celestial Bronze net coiled around him, and he fell off with a muffled cry. I looked around to see if anyone had dropped it, and saw a flash of armour at the top of a nearby tree.

There was someone, after all. They had a rope, too (why did everyone have ropes?), but it was just a normal rope (phew). It swung around the branches of the tree above me, and they jumped, landing squarely in front of me, and observed Percy, who was thrashing in the folds of the net, and very pale all of a sudden. Somehow, he threw off the net and levelled his sword at the figure.

"So, Clarisse, what do you want?"

"I was told that you'd probably be on flag mission, and that you were allergic to nets. Hadn't realised you'd bring a friend, though."

"What do you want with me?"

"I want to get you back for humiliating me yesterday." Uh oh. I decided then that the time for hiding what we could do was over.

I levelled my rope-firing thingumabob and fired. The hook caught on a small spur, but held fast. I locked eyes with Percy at the last second, and he nodded. I pressed the retractor and went flying up to the top of the rock, nearly losing my purchase and going splat off it.

I grabbed the flag in my left hand, and readied the grappling hook with my right. I looked down to see Percy and Clarisse engaged in furious combat, with Percy dodging every spear swipe (armour conducts, unfortunately), and adding in a few thrusts of his own, which only enraged Clarisse further.

I was going to have to go now, to have even the smallest hope of winning the game. Well, Annabeth would probably kill me afterwards, but it was a hazard of the job.

I fired the hook and began to swing away, the black flag rolled up under my arm, while I tried to be invisible against the trees as I sailed over the fighting. Not far now… I only needed to make it over the creek without getting shot by the arrows that were sailing thick and fast through the airspace (mainly fired from the Apollo cabin, so I just had to hope that I wasn't spotted, or I would get hit, guaranteed).

One last swing, and I was over. I let the rope lengthen, and dropped to the ground, tossing the flag to the Athena campers, as it was technically their victory. They'd had the idea of the grappling hooks, after all.

Though my victory was short-lived. Within a minute, an infuriated Annabeth stormed over to me, her stern eyes blazing.

"Where is he?" she demanded. "You didn't split up, did you?"

"He, he, I-I-I- left him fighting Clarisse!"

"You _what_?" her voice had dropped to a dangerous whisper. "Where is he?"

"I-I-I-"

"Show me!" She produced a rope identical to my own, and gave me a shove forwards. I had to fire the rope to prevent myself from falling flat on my face. Off I began, with Annabeth right behind me. This was not going to be fun.

* * *

 **That chapter's actually longer than I remember it being.**

 **Could you call the ending a cliffy? Sort of?**

 **Anyway, the story continues in the next chapter with a completely different (and randomly selected, we assure you) character from the actual series.**

 **Anyway. Until next time, guys (Monday? Will it be Monday? Probably.)**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	21. Kayla I

**Hi again, guys! Monday update, as sort of promised. Be warned: in this next couple of weeks, updates could be slow, especially as we have at least ten exams in the next seven days, if not more. And then we have a holiday, which we're both going away for. And THEN we have a PGL trip with school. And we're not allowed to take devices, which ultimately sucks. We're even going to lose our Duolingo streaks, which is upsetting.**

 **But anyway. Next chapter. This one is Kayla's POV.**

 **Review replies:**

 **Guest - Wow! It's great to hear that you're enjoying the story so much.**

 **Quihi - Not a problem! We're not completely sure, either. But hey, Percy has a habit of injuring himself, does he not? Besides, it helps set up this chapter.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Kayla Knowles POV

I cringed from my position behind Clarisse, as Percy got electrocuted by her spear, Laimer, and collapsed to the ground.

"Ouch! That must have hurt!"

I glared at my thirteen year old annoyance, sorry - brother; giving him a signal to stop the sarcastic commentary. Austin sighed, then turned back to the fight between the two opponents.

"Eat voltage, kelp head!" You could hear Clarisse screaming insults at the son of Poseidon from ten feet away.

Percy was doing pretty well, really, considering Clarisse was about as happy as a rhinoceros on a rampage, and maddened by the fact that he had beaten her in a fight in front of most of camp.

"Not quite so amazing now, huh? And _you_ don't have your pretty little Annie-wise-girl to save you, do you?"

Percy was now on the ground, one arm raised to attempt to shield himself from the spear blows that Clarisse was administering with far too much joy. He glared at her, his eyes full of a turbulent fury that would have had most seasoned warriors trembling. It was a wolf's stare, but hardened by experience. Scary.

"Actually, what you just said, Clarisse, is factually incorrect." Annabeth swooped down and landed lightly between the two of them. I heard a rustle and a curse from above, and glanced up to see Nico di Angelo hanging from a rope, hopelessly entangled in it.

I tried not to laugh, turning to watch Annabeth, who had drawn her eerie ivory longsword and had it pointed at Clarisse, who (unfortunately) didn't seem particularly fazed by it. The two prowled around like lionesses in a ring, each waiting for an opening in the other's poker-faced guard.

"New sword, eh, Annabeth? Could've sworn you fought with a dagger."

"I did, but I lost it over the summer."

"Bit careless, much?"

"You wouldn't say that if you knew the circumstances, but I'm sure you know that what happened on that quest is classified information that is rather disturbing."

"Actually, I don't. What happened to make you lose that dagger? You seemed really rather fond of it, oh wisest one."

"It fell in a hole."

Clarisse suddenly burst out laughing, clutching her sides in mirth and muttering to herself: "It fell in a hole! Worst excuse I've ever heard!"

Annabeth wasn't quite as amused. "Hilarious, I know. This one is drakon bone. A gift from a giant, believe it or not. And it's pretty sharp."

"A gift from a giant? Of course, we were fighting the giants! Perfectly natural for them to give you a sword."

"It was _different_! Will you ever understand when you need to leave a subject alone?" she demanded hotly, as her sword shot forwards in a flurry of strokes.

Clarisse thrust her spear at Annabeth, but she deflected it off the flat of her blade. Turned out that drakon bone was an insulator. This seemed to irritate Clarisse even further, and her swipes became wilder and faster, but messier and more tiring, too. Annabeth blocked every strike with her sword, and danced lightly around Clarisse as she swung at her, her eyes calculating something, maybe remembering. Then they widening in sudden clarity at whatever she was thinking about (it was always hard to tell with Annabeth), and she waited until her opponent made another crazed swing with her spear, and ducked under her open guard, and sliced the spear cleanly in half. Clarisse looked as if she was going to explode in fury, but (wisely) dropped the broken halves, and turned to run, only pausing to snarl over her shoulder,

"This isn't over, Chase, Jackson. Remember that."

"Is it ever over, Clarisse?" Annabeth asked the departed figure calmly, before turning to Percy.

"Can you stand, or am I going to risk getting electrocuted by remaining static as I attempt to haul you to your feet?"

"I think I can stand," he croaked. "Sure, I have a splitting headache and feel as if I just tried to eat potassium that exploded in my throat, but am otherwise OK. Wait, did I just make a reference to something educational?"

Annabeth grinned in response. "Sure, you just quoted potassium, a highly reactive Group 1 metal."

"Your brains are rubbing off on me, Wise Girl."

"Not that much, but yeah, I suppose so. Are you actually going to get up or what?" Percy shook his head wearily, and struggled to his feet.

I decided then that I should come out of hiding and maybe attack (I had been recently sent off by the rear guard to watch the flag rock, but I couldn't actually see the flag from my position in a bush. The Demeter campers would be able to name it, but I think it was winter jasmine. No clue, really.). I wriggled out of my hidey-hole and tried to pick off most of the leaves before coming into the open. I grabbed a random arrow from my quiver and notched it fast, before stepping out, my tautly strung bow aimed at the pair.

Annabeth took one look at me, before bursting out laughing. "The game's over, you know. Nico got your flag."

"Really? I thought that, as Percy here and Clarisse were fighting, he might have been attempting to get the flag. Don't think you can fool me." Annabeth looked at me almost apologetically.

"No, really. Nico and I came to get the flag, and Clarisse wanted to kill me for humiliating her. Nico just left with the flag, and Clarisse didn't even notice."

I lowered my bow hesitantly, still not entirely convinced.

Percy held out his hands in a stop gesture. "She was too busy enjoying electrocuting me. Reminded me of when I got electrocuted by a friend, except that his lightning was rather more powerful."

I narrowed my eyes, still a little confused. "One question. Why would a friend electrocute you?" I was curious.

"You'd be surprised. I can be rather annoying at times."

Annabeth made a curious choking noise at that, and looked at Percy incredulously. "Yeah, _no_ , you weren't trying to _kill_ him or anything?"

"It was an accident!"

Wait, how can you be trying to kill someone by accident?

I decided not to voice this. I'd already made a fool of myself by thinking that the game was still on, and besides, there are quite a few too many touchy subjects with those two. So I instead turned on my heel and headed back to the mess hall, to where, sure enough, the other sides were gathered, with the smaller team cheering and celebrating, and the larger arguing about tactics with each other (Hermes said more sabotage, Ares more smashing the others, Hephaestus more gadgets, Nike giving 110% more, Apollo more shooting, you get it. Go figure).

Faces turned as I walked in, followed by Percy, who was being slightly supported by Annabeth, and looked as though he wanted to set his hellhound on Clarisse. Hazel had a twig in her hair (ha ha, Hazel had a hazel twig in her hair), and looked pretty tired. So _that_ was why I sank up to my waist in perfectly solid ground halfway through the game, along with the rest of my cabin. That girl and her Mist manipulation. No fair. Actually, that's a bit rich coming from me, isn't it? We had the whole of the Hecate cabin.

After relating the story of the 'epic' fight for about the seventeenth time, I finally managed to escape to the open air, where I lay on my back and stared at the stars for a while, before retiring to my cabin, and going to sleep 'early', and dreaming of being a hero like Percy or Annabeth, or any of the Seven.

o0O0o

I was woken up by Will jumping up and down, holding an early Christmas present from his boyfriend, seeing as my brother was going to his mom's for Christmas. He seemed kind of hyper, which wasn't normal, especially during the winter.

I realised why when I went outside, or tried to.

Clearly Chiron had thought it amusing to let the weather take it's natural course overnight. We were snowed in. Skill with arrows doesn't (unfortunately) open blocked doors, unlike fire. Hephaestus were fine. They could just ask Leo to melt the snow. We would (embarrassingly) have to climb out of a window and shovel it away.

I decided to get out and help, only to see Percy having a lot of fun on the iced-over lake, using the currents underneath to skate around and keep him from cracking the thinner ice near the middle. When other people tried to come on, they fell through and got freezing cold, but were fished out again and blow-dried fairly quickly.

I felt sluggish in the cold, just like the other Apollo kids during winter. We like our sunshine and not having to stay inside all day. This was one of the things I hated about Winter, but at least it was three days until Christmas.

Christmas is fun; presents, yummy food, warmth, holidays. Sure, it makes the lava climbing wall feel even hotter (and frost makes it slippery…), but otherwise it's good fun. You can wear a million jumpers and no-one notices, and it's cool to prank the other cabins.

Damn, I should really stop hanging out with Cecil and Lou - they're rubbing off on me. (But it is quite fun!)

So that was why I was smiling, and joining in with the cheesy Christmas carols that everyone was singing as they dug their cabins out of the foot-deep snow (except for Athena, which stood up and shook itself off like an owl, making everyone jump).

Until I had a bucket of freezing water thrown over my head, which, in the low temperatures, refroze almost immediately into icicles that hung off my face like a beard.

I heard sniggers from above, as I turned upwards to glare at the culprits. Judging from that laughing, they were the Stoll brothers. Surprise, surprise.

I sighed and climbed back in through the window to get a shower before I died from hypothermia. It turned out that Nico had given Will a black jumper with a sunshine on it.

I could almost hear the Aphrodite girls screaming in my head. _Aww, Solangelo! Feels overload! They are soooo cute!_ I squeezed my eyes to stop the mental screaming in my head. _All I want for Christmas is for you to SHUT UP!_ I thought irritably.

Let's just say that I wasn't in a good mood after my icy dunking. But I couldn't help but feel a little festive, but only after shooting the Stolls in the butts with boxing-glove tipped arrows, courtesy of the Party Ponies.

I helped to bedeck not only our cabin, but also the Big House in tinsel and flashing lights. I noticed that Percy and Hazel were doing the Hades cabin with all sorts of colours and enough lights to use as much energy as a small town.

I almost felt sorry for Nico. It would be brighter than outside in there! Poseidon had silver and blue tinsel, and the Big Three kids were moving on to do Zeus and Hera in gold. Athena was just silver, and Ares had nothing at all, until Leo came along with some mechanism that simultaneously fired tinsel at the cabin, and nets at the rampaging campers that tried to stop him.

We were all feeling quite festive, really. It was good fun all day, as we prepared for Christmas all through camp and dug the cabins out of the snow.

Then Chiron came galloping out of the big house and spoke to Percy about something. Percy's cheerful smile dropped, and he went running back in the direction that Chiron came from.

And the Apollo kids also went into hibernation. Maybe I should've mentioned that (happens every year. We go into the cabin, and turn the heating right up, and refuse to come out. It's quite fun, really). A high pitched sound whistled in my ear, the call to hibernation - which is actually a very-nearly ultrasound whistle that only the Apollo and Poseidon kids can hear (apparently Percy has the hearing range of a dolphin).

I dumped the last shovelful of snow from the Nemesis cabin, although I wasn't entirely sure why I was helping them in the first place, and ran over, to where our gold cabin was already steaming slightly in the frosty air, the snow around melting into wet slush. I waded over to the window; the door was closed because otherwise we'd be flooded by now, and climbed in.

I was clearly the last, because Will pulled the window shut behind me. It was actually _warm_ inside, not the same numbing cold that slowed us down outside. The whole interior was covered in gold tinsel, that dripped off every surface. Everyone had donned Christmas jumpers. We were clearly going to wait it out until Christmas Eve, at least.

* * *

 **Thanks, guys! Don't forget to review/suggest things for a series of one shots that happen throughout the story (or in this timeline; basically suggestions for this universe)**

 **AHermioneH and Storm Sunfire**


	22. Butch II

**And we're back! Just one chapter for today, as it is quite long and we haven't had a single review since last chapter, which is making us kinda sad.**

 **We hope that you guys are all well/ having a great time on holiday/ had a great time on holiday. Our school trip was fun, but it was painful not to have technology for the five hour drive, so we just sang FOB together. Badly. Very badly. But AHermioneH was dying or something so we went with it.**

 **We went surfing and we have both continued to die in our end of year exams. RIP us.**

 **Don't forget, StormSunfire likes to read the reviews, and yep, we're also looking for suggestions for a series of oneshots we're planning that take place in line with the fic, so submit those in your reviews.**

 **Also, leave a nice comment or some constructive stuff. We just don't like opening up an email that says 'This sucks, yours sincerely twelve year old girl that likes Percy Jackson'. Okay? Okay. Yay.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire.**

* * *

Butch POV

Once the Apollo cabin had gone into hibernation, the rest of the camp decided to gather for dinner. Apollo provides food for them in their nice warm cabin... I hate that fact.

That girl Ellie was sitting nervously next to Chiron, waiting for her parent to claim her; Percy looked like he was about to storm up to Olympus himself and make someone. After all, she was seventeen, and had been at camp for two days without being claimed; so, basically, the gods were breaking a serious oath by not claiming her.

Who was her godly parent? There wasn't anything obvious to suggest someone. Maybe Hebe or someone like that; that would explain why she hadn't been claimed yet. But I can't speculate; I spent years trying to work out who my parent was, while I was in the Hermes cabin, and I never even thought for a moment that I could be a child of Iris.

She could be a daughter of Ares for all I know, although it was improbable that she was a 'major demigod', or she'd have been claimed by now… Or found by the monsters. But there were countless minor gods and goddesses, and sure, most of them didn't have demigod children that we knew of, but, still… The possibilities were endless, virtually.

But I guess she could be a child of a 'major' god; she did go to school with Annabeth for a year. Unlikely, though, but possibly. She was a demigod, definitely, she had told us about those creepy dreams. Creepy dreams that were flashbacks from the Seven's traumatic summer, which would most certainly be a somewhat unpleasant introduction to our crazy world, _and_ she got through the camp borders, which makes it kind of obvious.

Chiron was clearly nervous as well. He kept on looking at Ellie, well, looking above Ellie, for some kind of hologram. That's how most are claimed, anyway. I mean, there are the odd few who get zapped into something (ahem, Piper, ahem), but mainly. And besides, Chiron is a bit too tall to look you in the eye when he's in full horse form. He has to bend down to see even the taller people like Percy, and Ellie's not that tall, I mean, she's like an inch taller than Leo and he's an elf (midget).

A letter suddenly appeared in front of Chiron: I couldn't see much but it was written in cursive, which _really_ narrowed it down. It clearly disturbed Chiron, and he brushed Ellie away every time she leaned over to try and read it.

He clearly finished the letter and whispered a set of instructions to Ellie. She looked bewildered, but ran off to fetch the people he had asked for. She came back a few minutes later with Percy, Rachel and Apollo in tow. The only way I recognised him as Apollo were the telltale signs: one, he was reciting awful haikus, and two: he was wearing a large pair of sunglasses, even though it was freezing cold.

Chiron stomped his hoof against the ground, immediately silencing everyone in the dining pavilion. "A prophecy has been given, from the god of oracles himself. Could we hear it, possibly?" He had to repeat himself. "I do beg your pardon, to disturb your recitation, but could you possibly recite the prophecy?"

Apollo continued to ignore him. "THE PROPHECY!?" Chiron thundered.

"What? Oh, yes, sorry, do keep your hair on. Would you like a haiku to go with it?"

"No, thank you. Just the prophecy."

"Ok, sure. Ahem:

 _Beware the storm, o child of fire,_

 _They are the ones who never tire._

 _The plague of ice will make or break,_

 _At the reckoning that's at daybreak._

 _But dark will flood o'er the sky,_

 _And when it does, the end is nigh."_

A deathly silence settled over those listening. We all knew a prophecy of doom when we heard one. This one was so serious that Apollo had to tell us himself.

We had to figure out who was the 'child of fire' spoken of. Hephaestus was the name that popped immediately into my head, but it could be anyone, really. Cabin 9 was no tiny cabin.

Percy looked stunned, and Annabeth couldn't have been more surprised if a flea had slapped her upside the head with a hardback copy of _War and Peace._ Percy leaned over to whisper to Annabeth, who was sitting at the Poseidon table, much to the ignorance of Chiron and Mr D. I heard them mutter something about dark, maybe night, and _her_.

Not too sure who 'she' was, though. Could be anyone, knowing those two and their adventures.

"We need a quest!"

Well, nuh. Not like a prophecy of doom wouldn't need one.

Something else happened then, very suddenly. A hologram suddenly appeared above Ellie's head. She looked at everyone staring at her, and slowly craned her head back, before letting out a yelp of surprise.

It was a glowing waterfall of fire.

Annabeth paled, and Percy gagged slightly.

Chiron goggled at it, then cleared his throat. "Well, that settles it. Ellie, you are the leader of the quest, so you get to choose which two demigods will come with you. Choose someone experienced, I would say, to help you, as you haven't been at camp for even a week, let alone a summer. The last person to get a quest within their first year at camp was Percy here, apart from Jason, but that wasn't really his first quest, and he's a child of the Big Three, and it was a special case."

He shook his head with a wry smile, remembering the good old days when Percy got attacked by a hellhound in his first game of Capture the Flag, perhaps. (No, I wasn't there. There are such things as stories, believe it or not.)

"What, what was that?" asked Ellie in a shaky voice.

"That, Ellie, was a claiming," Annabeth replied, still looking above her, where the fiery river was fading.

"Of what?"

"Your father was, is, Pyriphlegethon."

"Who?"

"Pyriphlegethon. The guardian of the Phlegethon, one of the five rivers of the Underworld. The Phlegethon is the river of fire. The others are the Styx, Cocytus, Acheron and Lethe. Hate, misery, pain and forgetfulness respectively. You've probably got the best deal, actually. According to the myths, the Phlegethon has healing powers to keep the damned alive to endure more pain."

Annabeth's voice was flat, giving nothing away, but her eyes were turbulent. Very few people knew what had happened during the summer, but something told me that Annabeth spoke from experience, not 'according to the myths'.

Percy looked like he was trying to digest gasoline that had a match set to it. He then paled and gave Annabeth a look that said 'get the bucket', but to my intense relief managed to swallow his nausea and shook his head minutely.

"The Phlegethon is like swallowing a mixture of lava and gasoline. It's disgusting, but keeps you alive."

"How do you know what the Phlegm-river thing _tastes_ like?" Leo leaned over the Hephaestus table

"I have reliable sources," Annabeth replied smoothly.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah, your memory. She met Percy's gaze, and they had one of those weird eye-to-eye conversations. It looked like Percy was saying: _too close for comfort. Cut it out_. Annabeth had clearly had little intention of continuing, but Ellie seemed curious about the other Underworld rivers.

"What's the Styx like?"

"Black and oily," Percy replied. "Burns your skin like acid."

"Let me guess, you have reliable sources?"

"Actually, I went swimming in the Styx. It's a long story."

Ellie choked on her drink. "You went swimming in a river that burns you like acid?"

"It burns your soul from you body. But yes, I went swimming. I didn't really have a choice."

"OK. I'm not even going to ask how you survived that encounter, and I'll move on. What about the Cocytus?"

"It's the river of sorrow," Percy continued, his green eyes clouded with trauma. "I suppose it'd make you feel like life was worthless; whispering and ruining your self esteem and you should just give up and drown." He shook himself out of his stupor before shrugging. "I dunno."

"Alright, the Lethe."

"Well, if so much as a single drop of that gets on you, you begin to forget who you are. But you need a full immersion to have your memory totally wiped."

For reasons unknown, Nico (sitting at the Hades part of the Big Three table) began to snigger in his dinner, before his face dropped.

Percy glared at him."What?"

"Well, _no,_ " he said dryly. "You didn't immerse yourself in it with a badly injured shoulder and _nothing happened_ , or anything?"

Percy turned as red as a beetroot at that.

Ellie gawked. "How did you survive it?"

"My Poseidon-ish powers mean that I, when I want, don't get wet. I get surrounded by a layer of air or similar which also shielded me from the effects of the water. To be fair, Nico, I nearly killed myself doing it and passed out for about the seventh time in that mission afterwards." He gestured towards the son of Hades with his fork.

Nico shrugged noncommittally. "I suppose so. But you were the hero of that particular mission. Without you, we wouldn't have stopped the so-called 'Nawaka' from taking the sword and wreaking havoc with his friend Iapetus."

"I was the hero? Oh, come _on_ , I got hurt within the first five minutes, and _you_ guided us through the realms of the dead! All I did was lift the river, and nearly died several times."

"That's true. You nearly dying, I mean," Nico mused. "You were a hero, though. Admit it, won't you?"

"Why? Without you and Pinecone Face administering too much ambrosia and nectar, I wouldn't have got home for Christmas."

"It wasn't too much!"

"Yes, it was. I might have passed out, but you did tell me that any more and whoosh, flames."

"We had no choice! What else should we have done? You were _dying_! We had to do _something_. We're not healer kids of Apollo, in case you hadn't noticed. I, for one, am useless at first aid."

"I blame my school uniform." The dining hall went silent. You could have heard a pin drop.

"What?"

"If I had been wearing armour, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. School uniform doesn't protect your vitals enough."

Nico crossed his arms and glared at Percy. "You weren't stabbed in the chest! It wasn't your vitals!"

"I was scratched in my sword shoulder! You can't move your sword arm if your shoulder is dead! And they were the spirits of illness, too. The one that did it said it itself: Die in pain, mortal!"

Annabeth had been watching the two of them arguing about a mission she clearly hadn't been on with little interest, but cut in then and stopped them. "You are off the point, you two! Right, Ellie, you need to choose who you're going to take with you on the quest."

"You and Percy. You've got experience, I can tell. I know you. Who else?"

Leo made a wounded noise.

"Shut up, Valdez." Nico gazed at him boredly. "You haven't got the experience."

"But, but, but, I _built_ the Argo II!"

"These two have had more years and a worse summer than you. Shut up."

"You think _I_ had a great time during those 18 days! You think that I didn't blame myself for what happened! It was my fault! I broke the stupid cookie!"

What the heck was Valdez going on about?

"I was too busy with the statue! I made Frank busy getting _me_ to the controls! I pulled out and gave up! Don't you understand? I blamed myself that entire time, but I was _totally powerless_ to do anything about it! Don't you have any human feelings, di Angelo? Don't you understand how I felt?"

He had started off by yelling, but had slowly fallen into a hopeless whisper. "Don't you get it? I would had traded myself for both of them, every single time. I would have put myself up for the eidolons if I had realised what the consequences would have been. I had nightmares _every single night_ that they were down there. I thought _what if?_ so many times it seemed stupid that I hadn't made another decision when it happened. No, of course you didn't notice. I covered up the pain. I always cover up the pain. We're very alike in that respect, you know."

Nico looked like Leo had slapped him upside the face.

Ellie looked utterly bewildered, not for the first time that evening. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked tentatively.

"No," Leo said flatly. "You didn't say anything wrong at all." All the bravado had drained out of him, and he looked up at Nico with eyes like voids of despair.

"What just happened?" Percy looked between the two motherless boys. "Did someone start writing Valdangelo fanfiction?"

Noticing the weird looks everyone was sending him, he shrugged. "What? It was worth asking!"

"No." Nico snapped. "We had a disagreement."

"That, I noticed," he said dryly. "Nico, mind your tongue. One day, someone is gonna kill you for saying the wrong thing. Possibly me; it's happened a few times. Half an hour after meeting you I wanted to murder you. You didn't seem to notice."

* * *

 **And that's another chapter posted! Sorry if we murdered the characters' personalities somewhat. We sort of got caught up in the angst.**

 **Anyway. Updates should go back to being fairly regular, now we're back from holidays and exams and stuff like that.**

 **Don't forget to drop us a review if you'd like to say something: we can't read minds! Also, if you have any ideas for one-shots, do review and tell us those as well: we're a little bit stuck at the moment.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	23. Lacy II

**Hi again! Two chapters in two days! Shocker! This is called we're bored and procrastinating schoolwork. What else is new?**

 **We got one review for the last chapter, so that's enough for us to think that you guys haven't quite disappeared off of the face of the earth and might actually have some kind of interest in this story.**

 **Nobody's yet told us that the characters were OOC for the last chapter, so that's all good. Nobody's commented on the prophecy, either. (StormSunfire wrote it, btw). So we're safely (maybe) assuming that neither of those things were too dreadful, so we're ploughing on.**

 **This chapter: Lacy's POV (don't even ask, we know it's random).**

* * *

Lacy POV

The boys seemed oblivious to the rest of us observing them, and continued their ridiculous argument/conversation thing. We had no idea what they were yammering about, sure, but it was quite amusing just to watch while they yelled at each other about who knows what, totally unaware that half of the dining hall had stopped whatever they were doing and were watching them. Annabeth caught my eye, and shook her head minutely. _Don't disturb them if you want to keep your head._

I shrugged in response and rested my chin on my hand as I continued to observe. I was as confused as Percy when Leo stopped yelling, and I'd been watching the whole thing. It was the moment of truth - what were the two who had been chosen going to say about going on a quest?

"So, Ellie, you want me to come," Annabeth changed the subject back to the more pressing matter.

"Yes, I do. You know what you're doing. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, of course not. We've got a few worrying suspicions about the prophecy, and having us with you will increase your probability of death, but hey-ho." She was rather overly cheerful, probably to cover her concern about her 'suspicions'.

Percy was fairly quiet, but when asked, simply said: "What? Oh, the quest. Sure, I'll come. No problem."

Annabeth cocked her head to the side and looked at him curiously, her eyes narrowing. "Spit it out," she said sharply.

"What?" he asked, bewildered.

"What is it? Spit it out."

"What, but, it's nothing."

"Of course. No, it's not nothing. Look at me, and tell me it's nothing."

He looked up at her dolefully. "It's nothing," he said in a flat voice.

Annabeth sighed dramatically and grabbed his arm. "Fine, if you don't want to tell me while everyone else is here, we'll sit outside in the quad where no one's eavesdropping." She stood up and dragged him off, before sitting down outside, in plain sight of the hall, but out of earshot.

I suddenly elbowed Travis hard in the stomach, who had been in the middle of pickpocketing me, and he dropped what he had been holding: a blue cap, property of Annabeth, clearly stolen a few minutes before. I tugged it on, and promptly vanished. I snuck out of the hall to where Annabeth was telling Percy off.

"It's not nothing. Tell me. What's up?"

"Seriously, it's fine."

"No, it's not fine. You're not fine. I'm getting mad. In a minute I will put you in a headlock and ask you again."

"Fine. Do that then."

"Look," she said more gently. "I can tell something's bothering you. It's about the quest, isn't it?"

"Yes, it's about the quest."

"What is it?"

"I don't want to put Ellie in danger by us going on a quest with her. All the powers of her are focused on me at the moment. I would be better off walking around with a sign that says: 'Your mistress's worst enemy is here. Please annihilate.'"

"There's nothing you can do about that."

He sighed. "I know, but, I could not go on the quest or _something_. All the younger campers hero-worship me and all I want is to have some peace, away from all the monsters. But I _can't_ , because I'm a target because I'm a child of the Big Three."

"There's nothing you can do about that, either."

"I just wish there was! I don't want to go on more quests. The last one was a complete nightmare, and because I made one tiny mistake, I woke up the one person we didn't want to wake up."

"Well, you might have been able to realise that you had a nosebleed…"

"How? I'd just been knocked out cold! I wasn't feeling fantastic. In fact, in case you hadn't noticed, I could hardly see straight, let alone notice that I had a nosebleed that went out of control. I hurt all over, and it's a miracle that I'm not permanently brain damaged. I did have a mild case of concussion, or so I was told."

"You sure about the brain damage?"

"Yes! That's just _mean_."

Annabeth grinned.

"What?"

"I have totally succeeded in cheering you up."

"By talking about myself and a painful incident when I was backhanded into a wall. Sure, great way to cheer me up."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"Whatever."

I pulled the cap off as soon as I was sure that the conversation had finished and appeared out of thin air behind them. "So, you two. Chiron might have something to announce about the quest, and you might like to be there…"

They jumped like startled rabbits.

"Lacy? What are you doing here?" Annabeth exclaimed, then she noticed the hat that I was holding in my hands. "Why are you holding my hat?"

"I was curious about what you were arguing about, and thought this might make things a bit clearer. No, it didn't. And Travis stole the hat. Now, are you coming or not?"

o0O0o

"Silence please!" Chiron stamped his hoof and waited for the hall to quieten. "We have just had a quest announced. Ellie, daughter of Pyriphlegethon, am I correct?" Annabeth nodded. "Yes. As we do not have a cabin for this god, Ellie will be staying in the Hermes cabin tonight." His eyes dropped to the campers again. "Annabeth, would you kindly let Travis out of that headlock. He's beginning to go purple." Annabeth dropped Travis, where he landed with a groan in a heap. "Thank you. Right, as I was saying, the matter of this quest. I believe that Ellie has chosen two more experienced companions for the quest, who will help her with fighting and other necessary skills for survival. Percy, please let Annabeth teach archery. The last thing you will need is to shoot each other."

There it was. Pretty much the whole pavilion rolled their eyes. Of course it was those two. I personally thought that it was a rather good idea to take them, but what was my say compared to everyone else's? Chiron continued as if the interruption had not happened. "So, I believe that is it, is it? Annabeth, Percy, please help Ellie get armour and weapons. She might just need them…"

Ellie looked terrified. Annabeth reached out an arm to pat her reassuringly. "Chill, Ellie. We'll help you. You won't have to fight because Percy and I will protect you, _won't we_?" She glared at Percy, who shrugged.

"We'll try, or die in the process," he said, ever cheerful. Ellie went even paler. "Seriously, we might be fine. Might be." She looked somewhat horrified and made a sort of high-pitched squeaking noise in the back of her throat.

"C'mon, Ellie, we'll take you to the armoury," said Annabeth. "No more morbid speeches, Jackson," she added as an afterthought. Then, she turned on her heel and walked off, followed by Ellie, leaving Percy (with a mock hurt expression on his face) to catch up. I smiled and followed on after them, wondering what on this Earth or on Olympus (or in Hades) might happen next.

o0O0o

The armoury was fairly dark, because one of the two dull electric bulbs had blown and no one had been bothered to tell anyone. Ellie's eyes widened in shock at all of the weapons that glinted up at her. Annabeth looked her up and down, cocked her head to the side and did it again, then cursed in Ancient Greek for no apparent reason. I've never been incredibly diligent with my studies of the language, but I still know some cuss words. And that was incredibly rude.

Percy blinked at her."And what, may I ask, brought on that rather unladylike phrase?"

"I'm no lady, Jackson, you should know that by now," she replied haughtily. "I'm just annoyed I lost the laptop. It would have been able to pick out weapons for Ellie, no probs. We'll just have to use our trial and error. Right, Ellie, do you have a preferred method of combat?"

"Did you see me in that Gym lesson? I can't shoot, I-"

"High five." Percy grinned. "I can't shoot to save my life. Trust me, I have been in that situation before."

"Then how come you're not dead?" It seemed the obvious question.

"Oh, you know, queen of the gods comes to the rescue, the usual. No, I'm kidding. It's not normal. But Hera did make the arrow fly straight. She seemed to have taken a liking to me that we later found rather inconvenient. Now, please continue. Sorry for interrupting."

"What? Oh, right. I can't shoot, I have no coordination, I'm far too slow to use a dagger, I pretty much take the head off anyone I'm near, I'm just plain useless! I'm not a fighter!"

"No," Annabeth mused. "But you might be a pyrokinetic. I don't know, really. I've never heard of a child of Pyriphlegethon before."

"What's a pyrokinetic?"

"It's when you can control fire. You're not the most powerful of demigods, no offence intended, so you may or may not, and will almost definitely need fire to work with - you won't be able to create fire out of thin air. This is really hard to explain. Have you watched _The Last Airbender_?"

"Yes…?"

"You're probably like a firebender from that. But not evil."

"How will I know if I'm a fire-person?"

"Percy can teach you."

"I can?"

"You are an aquakinetic. It should be similar."

"A what?" he asked. "You know I don't like complicated words."

"Someone who can control _water_. I'm assuming that you can still do that, or have you moved on to-?" She broke off hurriedly, realising where she was heading.

"Moved on to what?" I asked.

"Nothing, it's nothing," Annabeth seemed a little shaken by what she had just said.

Percy's face was unreadable, but he was still as a statue. He shook himself, then blinked a few times, before saying,"Yes, I can still control water. But still, can't Leo help her? I mean he's the fire dude." Ellie blinked at him. "Off topic. Weapons."

"Yes, right. And no, Leo is too out of control and crazy." Annabeth turned to the piles. "Try this," she said shortly, dropping a longsword that was twice the length of my arm into Ellie's hands. She let out an "Owwwwww," and let it fall so that the tip rested on the ground. Too heavy.

"Ok, this then." It went on for about twenty minutes before she finally found a weapon that might work. It was a shortsword, about the length of my forearm and hand, plus the hilt (eighteen inches). Annabeth looked at it with a sort of fondness, but asked, "How's that?"

"Well, I can actually lift it…"

"Does it feel balanced?" Percy asked her.

"Yes, well, quite."

"Ok then, we'll go outside, and you can fight me."

"I can _what_?"

"I'm not going to kill you. It's just to see how you fight with it, which will determine whether or not it works."

"Alright then." We went outside, and Percy and Ellie stood facing each other two metres apart. Annabeth and I got out of the way. Percy pulled the pen out of his pocket and flipped off the lid. It sprang into his grasp as a sword. I had a moment to take a look at Percy's sword. It was a metre long, and leaf shaped, like a typical Greek blade. There was an inscription at the base of the blade, but I couldn't read it from where I was standing. The sword's name was written down the blade in Greek, which I knew without having to read it was Anaklusmos, Riptide.

It was a bit of a legendary weapon at camp. Everyone knew Riptide, the famous sword wielded by Percy Jackson. I was snapped of my daydreaming as Percy shrugged at Ellie, letting his sword flop sideways. She looked at him worriedly, before lunging slightly clumsily at him. He deflected the thrust off the flat of his blade, so that Ellie's sword jarred in her loose grip.

"Good. Now try and disarm me, like this." He hooked his sword behind Ellie's, and flicked his wrist, sending the sword spinning out of her grasp. She looked dubious, but picked up her weapon and went back to the fight, even though she hadn't got a hope of winning. After a couple more tries, Percy dropped his sword to his side and said, "I think that'll work. Annabeth?"

"Mm? Oh, yes, of course."

"You weren't even watching."

"Yes I was, but I had more important thoughts on my mind. Like the prophecy and maybe Olympus and a frightful summer."

"You were daydreaming. About architecture among other things."

Annabeth cocked her head. "Yes."

"Well, I'll bring you up to speed. This sword will work, and we need to get her armour that isn't so heavy that she will fall over. A shield won't go amiss either."

"Alright then. Lead on, Admiral."

"I'm not Admiral. That's Repair Boy. And no, don't you start with the _waterboy_ and _Aquaman_ too. I'm sick of the DC comics references between me and Aquaman, and Jason and Superman."

"Whatever, whatever! Keep your hair on, let's go help Ellie."

o0O0o

That evening felt a lot like a funeral for the three about to leave on the quest. Dinner was muted, and the campfire got to about one and a half metres tall and a pale yellow colour, with our depressed singing. Chiron made a toast (at dinner) to the 'three noble questers' i.e. the three on a death mission. Fun times. The next morning, we waved the three goodbye on their quest. They were headed for New York, because the prophecy gave no clue to location whatsoever. Argus drove off in the Delphi Strawberry Service van, and they were off. I won't say never to be seen again, but it does sound rather morbid and appropriate. Argus came back a few hours later.

* * *

 **Well, the end of that part snuck up on us quickly. Yes, you heard right; the second part is now over. Don't ask how; we don't know. There are about 100 pages of fic left (on Google Docs) and we've just had page 91, so that should give you an idea of about where we are in the fic. Yay! Quest!**

 **See ya! And don't forget to give us any ideas for one-shots. Or review. You could do that, too.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	24. Percy I

**Hi! Again! We're now starting Part 3, and the story will actually start to pick up from here (finally, we're past the slow starting part and actually onto the action… Gasp!).**

 **Speaking of action, there's actually a little bit of action in this scene. Sorry if it's a bit shoddy, but at least they're no longer just hanging out at high school. Milestone reached!**

 **Now's our first Percy Chapter as well, so that's cool.**

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 **Quihi - Sorry we forgot to reply last chapter. That's actually a cool point. We didn't realise until writing about it, either. It never really comes up in the books.**

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 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

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Percy Jackson POV

Yay. Another suicide quest from which we are unlikely to ever return, and incredibly likely to run into a primordial that I made an enemy of and really shouldn't have. Fun fun fun.

We were currently standing in the New York Central Park, trying not to look like total idiots, while I wondered how to tell my mom about going on another quest that's likely to end in death.

I already got grounded for my 'tattoo' when I got back from nearly a year away.

 _Hey Mom! I'm back!_

 _Percy, where have you been? I've been so worried about you!_

 _It's kind of a long story…_

 _Oh well, you can tell me later. Wait, what on Earth is that on your arm? It's not a tattoo, is_

 _it? It is! You are grounded!_

 _But, I can explain... I-_

 _GROUNDED!_

I mean, that hadn't been _literally_ what happened. But that had exact conversation about being grounded did happen about a week after I returned. That had been fun.

Now what? I could just imagine…

 _Mom, sorry, but I've got to go on another quest…_

 _NO WAY ARE YOU GOING ON A QUEST._

 _But, I have to…_

 _PERSEUS JACKSON, YOU LISTEN TO ME! NO MORE QUESTS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?_

Yeah, _no._ I wondered if maybe I just shouldn't tell her?

IM Chiron and ask him to instead? But last time I just disappeared on a quest, I was gone for six months without word, maybe I should just get Annabeth to tell her.

Yes, she loves Annabeth. That will protect me from her wrath.

I nudged my girlfriend and gave her puppy eyes, "Please can you -"

"- Talk to your mother?" She placed her hands on her hips. "No, Perseus. You're on your own this time. I explained _last_ January." Gods, is it January?

"Please?"

"No!" Annabeth marched towards the street on our left, Ellie in tow.

I sighed and followed on, using my internal compass to know that Annabeth actually knew where my apartment was better than I did.

Well, that's not strictly true, but it certainly felt that way…

o0O0o

"Percy, you know I don't want you to do this."

"Mom, I know, but I have to do this. I'll try my best to not die. It shouldn't be half as bad as last time."

"I know, Percy, but I don't want anything like that to ever happen to you again. It took me over a week to get it out of you last time. A week in which you hardly left your room and woke up with nightmares every night, more than once. I worry about you, Percy."

"I know. I'll be fine, really. Please Mom, I won't do anything as stupid as jumping off cliffs or bathing in acidic rivers. Probably."

She smiled at that. "I'll believe that when there's a likelihood of that happening. Which is definitely not this time."

"OK then. Bye, see you when I get back."

"Bye." I left the apartment and went to join Annabeth and Ellie, who were waiting outside for me.

"Let's go."

o0O0o

We had headed for the Empire State Building, to see if we could wheedle anything out of the doorman. We got: Statue of Liberty. It seemed slightly strange, but we do what the gods tell us. Sometimes. Besides, it was the only lead we had.

"Right, so now we're at the Statue, what do we do next?"

"Find somewhere to stay." My response had been automatic. "Hotel, preferably. We need to wait for the 'reckoning' at dawn. So we'll stay the night, and get up at… Is four thirty alright with you people? In the lobby at five?"

"Sure." Annabeth didn't mind.

"It's quite early…" Ellie began, but didn't complain. So that was why we were in a dingy hotel near the Statue of Liberty (it was cheap!) for a night, and rubbing the sleep out of our eyes at five in the lobby.

"What now?" I asked.

"We go to the Statue." Annabeth seemed to have it all worked out, which was just as well, considering I hadn't a clue. So that was what we did. We couldn't go up to the top of the statue; it was far too early, but we stood at it's feet and waited.

Ellie began to feel the cold first. "Is it just me, or is it getting colder?"

"It's not just you." I could feel a slight chill on the breeze, but it wasn't bothering me.

Five minutes later, and frost was forming beneath our feet. Ellie's lips were blue with cold.

Annabeth had taken her coat off and given it to her, and I was trying to keep Annabeth warm, considering she now had no coat.

Another five minutes, and Annabeth had us all jumping up and down and stamping to and fro to stop ourselves from falling unconscious in the cold. Gods, it was colder than Alaska, and I speak from experience.

After ten more minutes, Ellie was slumped against the pedestal of the statue, and shivering violently. Hoarfrost cracked on our eyelashes. Annabeth now had my coat, and I was very, very cold.

But I was still in better shape than Ellie. The light in her eyes was dimming, and she had stopped shivering. Annabeth and I were rubbing our arms, trying to get the circulation going. But we were growing tired, too, and our minds were beginning to succumb to the mind-numbing cold. We were all going to die if this continued.

Dawn hadn't broken the skyline yet, and something told me that it was going to get colder and colder until it did.

And then we'd have to fight.

As a final resort, I summoned the last of my strength, and the river exploded, winding around us and cocooning us in a half-sphere of water, which turned to ice almost immediately. I'd heard that it was warm inside an igloo. We were about to find out then, weren't we?

o0O0o

The first scarlet rays of dawn broke the horizon and cast all colours of the rainbow over the frosted walls of our igloo.

Ellie was silent, and Annabeth was trying to keep her warm enough to survive, as it was clear that Ellie's fire god parentage made her more susceptible to the cold, unlike me, as I was hard to burn (luckily, or I would have been a fried demigod pancake by then several times over. More than one occasion to do with the lava-covered climbing wall at camp and Clarisse. Details required? I think not.).

My lips were purple and I was frozen to the core (possibly because I wasn't wearing a coat?).

Annabeth was a little better, but she had my coat on. It was warmer in the igloo than outside it, not that it was saying much. More like minus twenty five as opposed to minus forty (Celsius, Chiron has this weird thing about Celsius… and no, it doesn't normally get that cold in New York).

The temperature suddenly snapped back to normal.

The igloo melted, and covered us all in freezing cold icy water (yes, I got soaked. I wasn't exactly in any shape to keep dry, let alone control the water. Doing it once had drained me completely.). It felt as if someone had thrown us into a blast furnace (and yes, I do speak from experience. Again.), even though it was only five or so degrees. Pins and needles shot through me. I felt like a puppet with all of the stuffing taken out of it, and sagged against the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.

"That was the plague of ice," Annabeth said grimly. "That means that the daybreak reckoning is next."

"Really? Can't it be, say, the fairground rides and party time first?" I groaned, but without much enthusiasm. All three of us were exhausted after trying to stay alive for the past half hour, and if anything came for us to reckon with, unless they were scared of floppy demigods, it would kill us. Fun times. I sat up, and tried to get the circulation going in my sword hand. I wanted to at least be able to lift Riptide when whatever was coming came. No such luck, it seemed.

A figure had appeared a few metres away. It was a man, dressed in typical Greek armour and wearing a red cloak. His helm completely covered his face, and a pair of horns wound up from it. In cartoon, he would have looked like a male Maleficent. Unfortunately, he was very much real and looked more like the Devil.

An aura of power radiated from him, and it made me feel worthless, like I should just give up and die, rather than face him. I drew my sword.

"Annabeth?"

"I have no idea."

"Puny mortals." A deep voice grated from inside the helm. "Give up. You have offended my mother and her honour. You will not live to see the sun set tonight."

"Who are you?" I challenged.

"I am Moros." The figure spread his arms wide, his bulky armour creaking slightly. A long, curved scimitar materialised in each of his hands.

Oh, brother. Not looking good.

"God of impending doom," Annabeth supplied. "Son of one of our least favourite primordial gods."

"That really narrows it down!"

"Nyx."

"Oh." I gripped the handle of my sword more tightly. Impending doom, huh? Not mine.

"So," I began conversationally. "Your mother sent you to reckon with us, huh?"

"Why do you ask these questions? You are just trying to delay your death."

"We've been given a prophecy. Ya know, a poem of doom. Right up your street. _The plague of ice will make or break, At the reckoning that's at daybreak._ So you've come to test us, like you test a sword? You're not the real fight."

" _Percy,"_ Annabeth hissed warningly. Too late.

"Talking won't get you anywhere. My brother Thanatos will have your souls!"

"Thanatos? He's a surprisingly nice guy, you know. I met him in Alaska when we killed Alcyoneus. He's got a wicked black iPad."

" _Percy._ "

Oops. Moros snarled, and his hand flew back and then forwards, faster than I could blink.

The scimitar came flying towards us like a blade of death, straight towards Ellie, who still couldn't lift a finger to protect herself. I hurled myself at the spinning blade, realised in midair I had no idea what to do, and shoulder-barged Ellie out of the way.

"Ow!" The blade had just caught my (other) shoulder as I shoved Ellie, and buried itself to the hilt in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, and stuck there, quivering. I put my hand to my shoulder and held it there, wincing. Gods, that hurt more than it should.

Moros was grinning in a way that gave me a huge desire to punch him. "My mother really wants you dead, you realise. These blades are made of Black Iron, forged in the heat of Tartarus. It will act as a poison to your mortal body. You and the daughter of Athena especially, for you have been through the pit and humiliated and angered the Lord himself."

Annabeth ran over and pulled my hand away, fumbling with the catch on her bag. She yanked out the flask of nectar and fiddled with the stopper. I slammed the stopwatch button on my wristwatch and it spiralled outwards as a shield, just in time to deflect the second blade as it drove towards Annabeth's head (yes, Tyson made me another one).

Moros spat, "This isn't over, just you see," and vanished. I sagged against the statue, exhausted. The cold, the control of the water and the fight had really taken it's toll. My shoulder burned like it was ablaze.

Annabeth finally unscrewed the lid on the nectar and poured a little onto the cut. It hissed and steamed, and stung like crazy. Her eyebrows knitted in concern."Nectar doesn't usually do that."

"Grazes from a sword aren't usually black and smoking with a smell like Gabe."

"You've got a point, but, still."

"Try the unicorn draught. I'm less likely to combust if I need a lot of it."

Ellie watched us both with eyes as wide as moons. She'd never seen anyone injured in battle before. I guess it was probably kind of scary to see a so-called 'experienced demigod' get felled by a tiny scratch to the shoulder. Not to mention that said scratch was now smoking.

"It's not as bad as it looks," I said, trying to reassure both of the girls as well as myself.

"No, of course not. You always say that." Annabeth's voice was clipped. "This time, I think it is."

"No it's not!"

"Yes, it is. Shut up and stay exactly where you are. I might spill it and that will probably make you start glowing or something. You always seem to create special circumstances for yourself." Annabeth finished pouring the unicorn draught on my wound, wiped her hands on her grimy camp shirt and sighed. "Seriously, Seaweed Brain!"

"Was it… Suitably heroic?" I asked, wearing the goofiest grin I could muster. Annabeth punched me on the uninjured shoulder.

"Heroism will get you killed."

Ellie let out a small giggle at our exchange, appearing to find it amusing. Maybe it was. Maybe it was just the post near-death giggles. Who knew. (Who even wanted to know, either?)

o0O0o

We sat awhile in the lobby of the Empire State Building, mulling over the prophecy while Annabeth fussed over me like an anxious mother hen; and also the doorman refused to let us up even though Annabeth was the flipping architect of flipping Olympus. It seemed that we just had to wait for the darkness, now, which was a scary prospect. I mean, after Annabeth was sure that I wasn't going to die any second, she had said, "Moros was a harbinger. Of something much worse."

Turned out that 'harbinger' meant something that signalled the approach of another, often more powerful, force. I knew exactly what that force was, unfortunately, and did not want to see them with a busted shoulder.

I nervously watched the dude at the counter as he appeared to get a message through the comms system. He groaned and waved a hand from us to the elevator, then pulled out the key card for Olympus. Annabeth snatched it out of his hand and walked away into the elevator, which once again was playing 'Staying Alive' (what is it with the gods and awful elevator music?).

We stood inside as we clicked up into the magic numbers, until it reached 600 and stopped. The doors slid smoothly open. I got out as quickly as possible, one, the music was terrible, two, the elevator reminded me a little too much of the Doors of Death, which I didn't ever want to see again; onto the paved path up to Olympus. Ellie let out a little gasp of admiration. I smiled, looking up at the new Olympus, designed by Annabeth, who was grinning broadly at the sight. Of course, she hadn't seen it finished yet.

She quickly began to glance at the skyline, as if taking measurements. "Oh, sorry. It's not quite finished and I was just wondering what to do," she muttered hurriedly, seeing us looking at her strangely.

"You built this?" Ellie spluttered.

"No, no, I didn't build it."

"No, she designed it. She's an architect, you know. The official architect for Olympus." I smiled at her angelically while she squirmed slightly in embarrassment.

Ellie gawked at her. "You're the architect for the home of the gods?"

"Yes, it was a reward, a couple of years back, after the Battle of Manhattan. Percy got offered something way bigger, but turned it down."

"What is way bigger than being the architect for Olympus?"

"Immortality," Annabeth said simply.

Ellie's incredulous gaze turned on me. "You _turned down_ immortality? Why?"

"That's pretty much what Zeus said," I smiled, but I could feel my face burning with embarrassment.

"Why, though?"

I pointed to Annabeth, whose face was also the colour of a fire truck covered in tomato juice.

"I couldn't leave her behind. Or my mum."

"You are supremely stupid," she said.

"I know, I know. But please, let's stop standing here arguing when we should be getting our audience with the king of the gods, who hates being kept waiting."

o0O0o

"You think that is what the prophecy means? That one of our worst enemies will rise and try and destroy us all?"

"Yes, Lord Zeus." Why Annabeth had made me speak, I wasn't entirely sure.

"So, what are you going to do about it? I can't intervene in the affairs of mortals. None of us can."

"We're just warning you. We don't know if she wants just us, or if she'll come for you next if we fail. We just want you to be on your guard. She's a particularly nasty foe."

"You think we don't know that, Mr Jackson?"

"Of course you know. It's just, she has powerful allies. Very powerful allies, who can destroy a Titan without an effort. We all nearly lost against Kronos during the Titan War. Her friend can

kill a giant easily. Us demigods wouldn't stand a chance. You might, but only if you were prepared. That's why we are here, Lord Zeus. We have experience with her, and her allies."

Zeus smiled at us in a rather smug way. "You do, do you?"

"Yes, this summer. I'm sure you are aware of what happened?"

"Perfectly."

"Then you'll know we came across her, her children and her allies. Her children squabble amongst themselves. She is less easily tricked, but if you mention Hemera, she'll get up in arms about it. Her ally is only weakened when he has a physical state. We put a cat up his armour."

"Really?"

"Truly, Lord Zeus. But we only survived the encounter because two far more powerful friends of ours sacrificed themselves to save us." My voice was seconds away from breaking. I hated to talk about this, but I had to, if I was to prepare the gods (I was doing my best to be polite and not to call the lord of the sky several colourful names and punching him in his immortal nose).

"What do you, mean, far more powerful?"

"A titan and a giant."

Zeus raised his eyebrows at us, almost sneering in surprise and shock. "And how do you know that they were actually trying to help you?"

Annabeth coughed her way into the conversation ."First of all, one of them was amnesiac; and we all know to trust an amnesiac." She sent a pointed glare at Hera, who responded with an eyeroll. "Second of all, the giant was peaceful and stuck fighting a drakon, plus he was exiled in his own father's pit and saved Percy's life. I'm pretty sure we could trust them." She placed her hands on her hips and huffed. That reminds me, don't get on Annabeth's bad side. She's feisty... and scary... just generally frightening. Something, however, told me that she was going too far and might end up as a pile of ashes on the floor in a moment, so I put a hand on her shoulder and looked at her pointedly. She sighed slightly.

"Anyway, I believe that we have told you what you need to know. Good day." And with that, she placed a hand on Ellie's arm and a hand on mine, and steered us out of the throne room, before Zeus got any more mad and smote us.

o0O0o

Ellie sat down on a bench outside in Central Park, and put her head in her hands as if the world was spinning. "That was pretty pointless. Are they ever useful?"

Annabeth and I exchanged glances; we'd both had that thought more than once before.

"Not particularly. That was actually a pretty decent conversation with Zeus. He seemed to be actually paying attention, or at least sort of. He made some intelligent-ish comments and didn't throw us out before we had finished."

Ellie raised her eyebrows, and sighed, looking upwards at the clear blue sky, and froze.

The sky had becoming a roiling mass of darkness, fanning out like ink through water from a central focus point (I've tried it, you should, it's really fun).

An eerie silence fell over us, until it was broken by ghostly whinnying, as two nebulous horses plunged out of the heavens and landed in front of us, frost cracking on the ground wherever their smoky hooves touched.

Oh gods, I remembered these horses (and they still wanted to eat us). Annabeth stiffened beside me in alarm, and Ellie went as white as a sheet and nearly fainted with terror. My shoulder burned, quite suddenly.

I staggered backwards, but tried not to show weakness, as the chariot rolled to a stop behind the horses, and astride it, a figure stood, wreathed in darkness and radiating cold.

I sucked in a breath, preparing for the female figure I knew would emerge.

But she never came. Instead a gaunt, black haired man materialized from the darkness and laughed maniacally.

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 **Thanks for reading. Don't forget to review and reply etc. as we love seeing emails pop into our (kind of) shared inbox. All of our exams are officially over now (after a Latin sort-of nightmare today) - I'm not sure if StormSunfire mentioned that.**

 **See ya,**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	25. Interlude I: Danny IX

**Hi again! We are currently stuck in the British heatwave and dying. We have low heat tolerance. It is usually cold and rainy here. This is our excuse if these chapters are dodgy. Our brains have melted.**

 **Anyway. We're giving you two chapters today, because this one is short and we're feeling nice (read: we don't want to do our homework. It is far too hot for Maths).**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Quihi - Thanks for the obligatory geography nitpick** **TM** **\- we'll change that soon. It's great that you like that sentence (I'm pretty sure StormSunfire wrote it, but I don't know) and don't worry: you're going to find out who he is real soon. Not in this chapter, but within two sentences in the next. This chapter is tiny, anyway.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

* * *

Danny POV

Thanks, guys, for leaving me to go back Goode House by myself and explain your disappearance. It was me, Will, Hazel, Leo and Piper who were summoned to the principal's office (over the loudspeaker too, embarrassing much?) to explain why three students had inexplicably vanished.

"So, do any of you have any idea why or where these three pupils have disappeared to?" was the start of the conversation.

Time to lie our butts off.

"Um, no, I don't know where they are," I began.

Not strictly a lie, because I hadn't the foggiest where they were, but it still felt like lying.

"We went to Summer Camp."

Miss Bryant looked a little confused and raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, it's just that we've been going for a long time, and wanted to show them it." Will dived in and saved me. "We knew that it was a bit strange, going during winter and just for a weekend, but my dad knows the director and we were invited for a quick visit."

Also not strictly a lie, but not true either. We can just leave out the fact that Will's dad is the irritating Greek god of music and poetry and oracles and archery and a hell of a lot else, and he appeared in person to tell Ellie that she was probably going to die. Oh, and the camp director is the god of wine, and the activities director is half horse. Might get the principal mad and end us up in the asylum. Just might.

Ten minutes later, and an unconvinced principal released us from the office. We went to join the classes that we were missing, and tried to ignore all of the strange looks that we were receiving.

"What?"

"Oooh, Danny Dogood being a naughty boy?"

Will subtly swung his bag at the offender, which just happened to contain his medical case (which is a hard plastic box…) Funnily enough, they didn't say anything else. Good job we had Mrs Yew, too. She didn't seem remotely bothered by all of this.

"Explaining your missing classmates, I am assuming?" She raised her eyebrows in a similar way to how Ms Bryant did in the office five minutes beforehand, but her eyes twinkled with amusement, as we shared a knowing, if sad, look.

"Yes, Mrs Yew."

* * *

 **Oh God, it looks shorter than it did on Google.**

 **Yep, that is the entire chapter. Sorry that it's so short - it's much more of an interlude than a chapter. Plus, we didn't know what to say in this chapter. We wanted to get back to the actual action, but also point out that we hadn't forgotten that half of our characters exist.**

 **We're posting another one. Right now.**


	26. Ellie X

**Hi again. On with the actual chapter. With some (?) action.**

 **Here. Have some Dark!Percy.**

 **(If you just jumped to the last chapter instead of remembering which chapter you were on, we just posted another one before this, so check that out first)**

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Ellie POV

The man leered at us, his eyes sparking with malevolence. "So, puny demigods. You two are the two who dared cross Mother Night?"

He jabbed a gnarled finger at Percy and Annabeth, who gulped nervously.

"Y-yes, is it Erebus?" Annabeth asked.

"Indeed it is, daughter of Athena, who hides whilst her _companion_ takes the blows for her."

Annabeth flinched visibly, but didn't say anything.

"Yes, yes, I know _all_ about that. You destroyed a number of Night's innocent children, didn't you?"

"They weren't _innocent_!" Percy yelled defiantly. "They gave us two choices, kill them and die, or let them kill us! That is not my definition of innocent."

Erebus gazed at Percy, as if looking right through him. "You speak big, for a small demigod, don't you. I heard that you pair caused Mother Night a whole lot of trouble, did you not?"

He raised a black eyebrow. Percy raised his head and stared the god down. With hindsight, it was probably a bad idea. Erebus glared at him, but (to his credit) Percy didn't waver for a second.

He looked more angry than I had ever seen him, and I didn't want to be on the receiving end of that fury, as he looked utterly terrifying and murderous, even. I trembled as the glare swept past me, though lingering for only a second.

Percy turned his icy gaze back to Erebus. "Is ' _Mother Night'_ so scared that we'll defeat her again that she's hiding behind you, too afraid to come out? You accuse _Annabeth_ of hiding behind me? She's here, and concerning the incident you are undoubtedly referring to, it wasn't like she had a lot of choice, was it? And I made the decision myself. What do you have to say for _that_?"

His green eyes were getting closer and closer to a blackish grey, like the sea before a hurricane strikes. "Did you hear about what else I did in Tartarus?" A sadistic smile was slowly unfurling on his face.

The very temperature of the air seemed to drop by several degrees as he said that word. I recognised it, but only because I had read on a bit in Greek.

Annabeth and Percy never talked about the primordials, and Ms Yew had only skimmed over the topic. Tartarus - the second husband of Gaia and the father of the giants, as well as the Pit - the immortal version of a dungeon where evil immortals and monsters were imprisoned. Views conflicted about what the Pit was actually like, probably because no mortal had ever survived it and even the gods feared to go near.

Erebus looked slightly shocked.

"What, I said it! I know! I'm sick of hiding from the truth! That is where we went during the summer. All because of a stupid spider! Tartarus, Tartarus, Tartarus. God of the pit, murderer of my friends, the most evil being to ever live!" he ranted on, his voice growing darker and darker. His hands started to clench around empty air.

Annabeth was looking slightly queasy, her fury at Erebus' accusations suddenly turning into fear as well. So, something was happening.

The clouds above us seemed to swirl and pulse with water, though there was no rain falling, and it was supposed to stay dry. The darkness seemed to grow darker, as if it were waiting for something.

Erebus just laughed. "So, you're going to try and treat me like you treated the _minor_ goddess Akhlys? Go ahead and try. It will be amusing."

Percy laughed in the same sort of way as Erebus had when he arrived. Suddenly I felt a hand on my arm, and I jumped about a foot in the air. Annabeth pulled me backwards, towards the treeline, careful not to disturb the two men. I couldn't call Percy a boy, not right now, not like this.

"I'm not going to do what I did to Akhlys; that would only work on her. Instead, I have been working on something else," Percy snarled.

It was difficult to tell whether he was even on our side, now. His eyes gleamed with hatred and fury, and he was stood there, fists clenched, and, despite being so much smaller than Erebus, he still looked just as intimidating. "Can you guess?" His smirk grew across his face.

Annabeth gave out a high whimper as she realised what he was doing.

"What?"

"He wouldn't, no that would make him as bad as..." Annabeth held her head in her hands, tears tracking silently down her face for a few seconds, before hardening her resolve and turning to face the two. Wind whipped around us, and it would be difficult for sound to travel that far, but I could tell that she wouldn't go down without a fight.

"Percy! STOP!" She screamed at him, as heavy rain started to hit her face. "STOP!"

Percy turned towards the sound, as if in a trance. A huge rift appeared in the clouds, and the rain darkened in colour, targeting Erebus and punching through his dark armour. Then, a look of terror came over his face, as if he finally realised what he was doing. The rain cut off as suddenly as it had started, sucking Erebus up, up, up into the black clouds.

The wind died down. Percy sank to the ground and put his head in his hands. I heard a hitching, terrified breathing, and realised that it was my own.

Annabeth ran over to him, looking absolutely mortified. "You promised! You promised that it would never happen again!" she sobbed.

Percy didn't look up from his arms, staying curled in a ball on the sodden grass.

"You promised! After, after what happened with Akhlys, you, you promised me! _Why -_?" She was cut off by a piece of black armour falling from above, then a helmet. " _Perseus_ , where is the rest of Erebus? _What have you done_?"

Percy's heaving breathing ceased as he looked up.

"I turned him into water. Do you remember Nico's experience with Bryce Lawrence?"

Annabeth nodded uncertainly, while I just frowned in confusion.

"How, though? You can't-"

"Kill a primordial, I know. It's not permanent, but he's pretty scattered. For now, when he eventually gathers enough power to form he'll be water, someone will have to turn him back. And I, for one, will not. But other primordials will have that power. He'll be back."

With that, he turned quietly away and sat, shoulders hunched, facing towards the rivers.

We stayed there for some time, and something just clicked, as we sat there in complete agreement. Annabeth gently rested her head on Percy's shoulder, to his evident surprise.

"Wha-OK. I just thought…"

"What?" she asked.

"That you'd maybe… Maybe you'd hate me for what I did back there. That you'd think that I'm some kind of monster."

"Percy, I get it. I forgive you. Really. After this summer, did you really think that I could hate you, for _anything_?"

"Well… I..."

"Shut up, Seaweed Brain."

So he did.

I felt a little intrusive, so cleared my throat and said nervously, "So, I'll go and leave you for a min? Sorry for intruding, I-"

"No need, Ellie. You're not butting in," Annabeth said kindly. She smiled wanly, and stood up, brushing off her wet jeans. Percy also climbed wearily to his feet.

His eyes had returned to a normal colour, but were strangely distant. He hardly spoke all the way back to the hotel (we had decided to go to bed early), which wasn't anything like him.

He kept rubbed his bad shoulder, as if it was hurting him, but didn't complain or anything, just trudged quietly up to his room. I'm no expert on moods and the like, but it wasn't hard to tell that both Percy and Annabeth were feeling frayed, so I didn't try to make any small talk, and managed to suppress my questions about what Erebus had said, about some Ak-lis and hiding behind Percy, and how Percy had responded by saying that she'd had little choice.

o0O0o

I was awoken at five in the morning by Annabeth, who was wearing full armour and looked concerned.

"Wha-why-I-"

"Get up. Now."

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, Ellie. I think we're in for trouble." That shut me up, and I got up quickly, and Annabeth helped me fasten my armour straps. We than ran downstairs, to where Percy was waiting for us, tapping his deadly ballpoint pen on his thigh.

"Finally! We've got to go, now!"

Annabeth and I wordlessly followed him as he ran out, fast, and quickly leaving me behind with his longer stride, despite what he said about being hopeless at foot racing. I caught up with the two of them back in Central Park, and stopped to catch my breath.

They were just as out of puff as I was, if not more so, which made me reconsider my thoughts about being truly hopeless at running. Percy and Annabeth were both wheezing painfully, but recovered far faster than I did (OK, maybe I was hopeless at running).

Annabeth stood up and put her hands on her hips, before demanding, "Okay then. What's the hurry, and why are we... " Her voice trailed away. "Oh. I see." There was something on the ground, just under the bench, where none would notice but the keen eyes of a demigod. Words, burned blackly into the grass, in jagged and uneven letters:

 _This isn't over, puny demigods._

 _You defeated Erebus, but you can't defeat me._

 _You won't be able to lie this time, either, or turn my own against me. There won't be a Titan and a giant to save you. You won't win through trickery, and you won't win through strength. Darkness is eternal, and your mortal lives are not._

 _I will win, and you will die. You cannot kill me, but I can kill you..._

Ah.

"That is what you needed to see." Percy looked worried at the inscription. "We're in pretty deep, so to speak."

"You think?" I asked, a little confused. "Whoever put this there is gonna be back. And this time, we won't survive the encounter. You get that, right?"

"Of course I get that. But we've got used to beating the odds," Percy replied. "And I will never say that we've lost before we've begun, because it isn't true."

"Sorry, but you _know_ I'm new to this, and it doesn't really help that you're being all secretive about things that happened last summer. It's really confusing, getting dragged into everything that you've started and I've not a clue. I just-"

"We know, Ellie," Annabeth cut in. "But we're trying to keep you safe, and telling you what happened will only scare you. We went through some pretty terrible things over the summer."

"I can tell, especially since Percy clearly got no sleep last night," I pointed out.

"How can you tell?" Annabeth asked gently, deftly steering the subject away from my prying, in a way that I didn't notice at the time. She could obviously tell, as Percy was very close to her and she was amazing at reading people, but she did seem a little surprised that I could guess as well.

"He's got to have come here for a walk, hasn't he? I mean, it wasn't here yesterday, and there's absolutely no way you can see it from the hotel window, and it's five in the morning, so he didn't come back last night, or he'd have woken us then. He's got bags under his eyes and looks like he did when we went to bed last night, which is exhausted, which all points towards lack of sleep. It's not that hard."

Percy nodded thoughtfully, and rubbed his bad shoulder absent-mindedly. "This is why I hate being a demigod. Generally your enemies are immortal and can't be killed, and if they can... you're extremely lucky."

I bit my lip, thinking of what happened yesterday with Erebus.

"We need to get a message to the others at Goode House, warn them that Nyx is coming and that we need all the help we can get."

Annabeth's eyebrows creased in worry for the other demigods. "Are you sure? I mean, Danny's pretty untrained; he's only had a couple of weeks at Camp. And the others probably want a break after the war."

Percy's eyes hardened, and suddenly he looked decades older than seventeen. " _Annabeth_ , we have to. If we don't, we're dead, and that's not going to be a good experience for Ellie."

Annabeth rolled her eyes.

"I know we're on good terms with Uncle H, but Ellie isn't. She'd probably end up in Asphodel."

Was that meant to be a compliment? I don't know.

"But-"

"No. We need them. Will is a child of _Apollo_ , the god of the sun! He can help with Nyx. Danny can help with the water, and Hazel is a daughter of Pluto. One of the Big Three!"

Annabeth pursed her lips, before sighing in an almost pained way. "Fine, we'll IM them, but it's up to them if they help."

Percy's mischievous smirk returned for the first time all week.

"Deal."

* * *

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 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH, from Britain. In a heatwave. And dying.**


	27. Interlude II: Hazel I

**Hi again! Nobody left us any reviews on the last couple of chapters, so we have no idea what you guys thought of them, but the heatwave** _ **seems**_ **to be ending, so we are alive and functioning again to bring you this next chapter!**

 **This is another interlude (I think we were going through an interlude-y phase at the time?) and it sort of covers how Hazel and the rest of them pop up in the next chapter.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Hazel Levesque POV

It was a slight issue when an Iris Message appeared halfway through Art.

Percy's fuzzy face appeared without warning. "Um... Hazel? This isn't a bad time, is it?"

Somehow, the cloudy screen was disguised by the Mist as nothing but thin air. Thankfully. Mrs Hopkins appeared to be unfazed as I whispered to nothing, "What do you need?"

"Uhh... Nyx has come back and we kind of need help. She's a Primordial."

Nyx, Nyx, Nyx. Night? Schist.

Percy rubbed the back of his neck. "So, can you gather the others and maybe meet us at Central Park tomorrow morning? Thanks." Then he swiped through the screen.

While I had been talking to Percy, I had been absent mindedly drawing a face.

I gasped as I looked down at the woman I had drawn. Her jet black hair was done in an elaborate Ancient Greek hairstyle and headdress, and her eyes were empty, even though I had shaded them in. Her dress was a classic Greek chiton, that reached to her feet, once again that I had somehow shaded in. Nyx's name appeared in my mind.

"Oh! That's who we're fighting!"

My stomach dropped. Hadn't Percy and Annabeth mentioned Mother Night before? Wasn't she, like, _really_ evil?

The 'myths' about Nyx gradually came back into my head as I continued sketching my actual art project. And wondering how in Hades I was going to get to Central Park for tomorrow morning.

First of all, I had to gather the others. But which others? And how in the space of one afternoon?

Well, first things first, I had to get through this art lesson without getting a detention. And believe me, with Mrs Hopkins as a teacher, that's easier said than done.

o0O0o

I managed to create a rainbow that evening, using Annabeth's prism that she kept by her bed for Iris-Messaging. I went for the direct line, so didn't need drachmas, but I still had to find the others. I mean, Piper, Will and Danny were easy to convince. I just went, "Central Park tomorrow? What do you think?" and they were all like, "Yeah, sure."

I decided to message Frank, as he would come if I asked him, and Jason, as he might, and Reyna, because she's good to have on your side, although I wasn't sure if she'd come.

Sure enough, Frank said he'd meet us at Central Park in the morning, and Jason sort of shrugged and said, 'why not?'. Reyna unfortunately denied the offer, stating that Camp Jupiter needed at least one praetor. Figured.

I also called up Nico, with the request to borrow his chauffeur, Jules Albert. He said that was fine, but he wasn't coming. I didn't mind that much, although I have to admit that I was a little hurt.

The next morning we, being Piper and I, hurried out of the dorm quietly. Though unfortunately we weren't quiet enough when walking down the corridor.

Felicity peered out of her door. "Where are you going?"

We exchanged nervous glances. "Uhh, visiting friends."

"Oh, are you seeing Ellie?"

"I don't know, maybe?" Piper shrugged.

Felicity shook her blonde head of hair. "Umm, if you do, can you say hi and that I want to meet up when she gets back."

 _If_ she gets back, I added in my head.

I felt sorry for Felicity; she and Ellie were friends for a couple of weeks and then Ellie threw it all away for some reason. We never really pushed her on the subject, but their friendship failed unexpectedly and Felicity clearly didn't like that.

So Jules Albert appeared at six o'clock sharpish, and he drove like the wind all the way to Central Park, in time for eight.

We piled out, thanked the chauffeur, and walked over to where Percy, Annabeth and Ellie were waiting by a bench. A split second later, and the wings of an eagle swooped overhead, and dropped Frank and Jason in a heap on the ground.

They got up pretty swiftly, dusting down their armour, just as the sky turned inky black, and a chariot materialised out of thin air, pulled by nebulous black horses. The woman from my doodle/drawing was steering the vehicle, as her black hair fell in front of her eyes.

* * *

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 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	28. Danny X

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 **Action scene from Danny POV? Meh, we wrote it ages ago: here it is.**

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* * *

Danny POV

Listen here, I was not impressed to find out that an evil was trying to kill my friends, especially not an unkillable evil.

So I wasn't particularly happy when Hazel appeared at our door, telling us to pack ambrosia, nectar and bandages and to meet her at six o'clock the next morning on the front lawn.

"Nyx isn't exactly going to go down easily, is she? The others need all the help they can get. And no, six is not early. Go to bed before ten." She turned away and strode down the corridor, probably going to pack.

The next morning, we were driven by a creepy zombie dude (with no regard for speed limits) to Central Park, where an eagle dropped another two guys (one nearly on to his gold sword) and we readied for a fight.

My sword felt heavy in my hands, and I felt clumsy and slow in my hot armour. Hazel saw the look on my face and beckoned the others, who were clearly more experienced (not that that was difficult). They circled around me, so that I wouldn't have to fight until absolutely necessary, and that was when the sky went black and the scariest woman I had ever seen landed in a chariot pulled by horses made of smoke.

Percy looked at her with pure hatred, and flexed his shoulder, as if in pain. Will raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, clearly noticing, but didn't say anything.

I turned my eyes back to the woman, who had long black hair, huge black wings and black eyes and black armour, which shimmered with silver at her belt. She drew a wicked black sword (what was her deal with black?) and coolly pointed it in our direction.

"Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. So you did survive. Your cheap tricks won't save you now. You won't get a chance to talk and trick me with your words. I will simply kill you. Already you bear the mark of Black Iron, do you not? Do not try to hide it, Mr Jackson. You will die anyway."

Percy gulped visibly, but stared her down with a stormy gaze. He flexed his shoulder again, this time with a subtle wince.

The woman looked at him condescendingly with a truly evil smile. "Aw, does it hurt? Is your wonderful medicine finally failing?" she said in a baby voice, before going back to stone. "Black Iron was designed to destroy the gods. Nothing they can try will heal you."

"Maybe, but I won't let you take over my world. Go back to Tartarus! You do not belong in the world of the living! My life is not the most important factor here!"

"And you, Mr Jackson, don't belong in the land of the dead and the immortal."

"I didn't have a choice! And I didn't go to tear it up by it's roots!"

"No?"

"Shut _up_. If you're gonna kill us, get on with it. It's getting chilly," remarked the blond boy (dropped by the eagle, called Jason?) sourly.

"Why hello, _Pontifex_. You hauled yourself away from the gods to die?"

"It's none of your business."

"Isn't it?"

"Can't you leave him out of this, Nyx?" asked Annabeth, her voice tight with fear and anger. "He was nothing to do with this. He wasn't the one who embarrassed you in your homeland. He wasn't the one who said that he was a tourist, you know, just casually taking a holiday through _hell_ , nothing at all odd about _that_."

Nyx's face contorted, and she raised her arm with blinding speed and released a concentrated bolt of pure darkness at Annabeth, who instinctively ducked, not that it would have done anything. It caught her full in the chest, sending her flying twenty feet backwards and crumpling to the ground.

Percy let out a cry of anguish, and the ground rumbled, before just about every water pipe in New York exploded and struck Nyx simultaneously, who simply laughed at his fury. The water dissipated as Percy ran to Annabeth, kneeling at her side, his hands trembling.

Will was glancing furtively between Nyx and Annabeth, until Piper noticed and gave him a shove in Annabeth's direction, moving to fill the gap in the line that he had left. He sprinted over, and threw open his medical box, rifling through it and looking for something, before giving up and grabbing a flask of nectar.

He gently pushed Percy out of his way, clearly trying not to offend him, but got given a hurt and stressed look in return. Percy stood slowly and turned to face Nyx again, who was gloating and laughing.

He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white around the hilt of his sword, and glared at Nyx with a burning intensity that would've had me in a puddle of terror on the floor begging for mercy, so furious that his eyes seemed to glow in the twilight.

Nyx turned her black, laughing gaze to him, looking at him with mock sympathy. "So, the fatal flaw of Perseus Jackson strikes again. This time, maybe it really will be _fatal_."

"It's not the worst fatal flaw to have. I think that yours is jealousy. Jealousy of your oh-so-lovely daughter Hemera, hmm?"

"Isn't it? You can't destroy immortals. My fatal flaw will never be fatal, will it? You'd give the whole world to save this tiny group of friends. It amuses me. You would watch everything you fight for fall to ruin with a smile on your face if you would be able to sail through with your little _friends_. You don't care what happens to the gods."

"Your last point is not true. I do care. Because, sure, I hate the gods sometimes, but they aren't nearly as bad as you, as the other primordials, or as the Titans. I believe that there is a price with immortality. Idiocy."

He ducked behind his bronze shield as she unleashed another bolt of darkness, the metal bright as a burnished coin in the blackness, deflecting the worst of the rays. Black tendrils crept around the edge like malevolent fingers, trying to extinguish his light, and clearly exhausting him, but weren't able to bring him to collapse.

He stood shakily, the shield hanging limply from his arm, but his sword tip up and eyes ablaze. "Is that the first time that you've failed? Yeah? Don't like what it's like, do you? Well, I've lived my whole life as one big failure. I was always the stupid, dyslexic kid, the troublemaker, the boy with no friends who got expelled. I wasn't even able to stop a stupid nosebleed before I woke Mother Earth. I-ow!"

He yelped as one of Nyx's nebulous horses bit him on his already sore shoulder. "Mind your language! No, I am not tasty! Get off! Nyx, wash your horse's mouth out!" The horse wouldn't let go, no matter how he yelled, and it's wicked teeth were starting to bore through Percy's armour.

Nyx watched serenely, clearly happy to let her pet do the killing for her.

The dark sky inexplicably crackled with ozone, and an almighty bolt of lightning arrowed from the sky, struck Jason's golden sword, and bounced off to hit Nyx in the face.

She turned sharply from her horse, and glared at the offending demigod, and then turned back, completely ignoring him. "Now Shade, Shadow wants a try too, why don't you let him," she cooed.

The horse tossed its head, making Percy yelp as his arm got jerked violently upwards, the horse's teeth tearing faster through his tough armour, and then dropped him. He fell in a heap, before jumping up and nearly escaping the cruel grasp of the dark steeds, but not quite.

The second horse snaked it's head out, and grabbed him by his already injured arm, with it's half-shredded armour. He flailed and kicked, trying to strike the horse with his sword, but the blade passed straight through it as if it were smoke. It pulled, like a dog with a bone, and he lost his footing on the short grass with a cry of alarm.

Nyx smiled cruelly, watching with a smug look on her face as the horse's teeth shredded Percy's armour and bit his arm instead.

Hazel, unable to take it any longer, suddenly threw out a hand, and the ground erupted, hitting the horse with high-velocity gemstones that made it squeal and drop Percy, who fell in a heap for the second time, and rolled out of the way as the horse reared and stamped.

He, by some crazy amount of luck, got out from under the flailing hooves without getting killed, clutching his injured arm to his chest.

There was a weak cough from behind our little circle, and I spun to see Annabeth stirring under Will's care. Her eyes were glassy and unseeing, and Will looked concerned, turning again to rifle through his medical box, searching for something that might help. He slammed it violently shut, and placed both of his hands on each of her shoulders, and began to chant (a prayer to his dad?).

Golden light diffused into the air around him, and there was a flash, then Will was shaking his head, probably to clear some kind of post-healing dizziness, and Annabeth was looking much better. Exhausted, but alive.

I turned back to Percy, who was back on his feet and looked more furious than ever, his eyes ablaze with a maddened light (even if he looked like if you blew on him, he'd fall over).

The others had moved forwards, to bring him into the relative safety of numbers. I joined behind, feeling confused, and utterly terrified.

Nyx snarled. "You will fail, puny mortals. I will crush you like bugs. I will-"

"Ooh look, I think it's Day!" Percy exclaimed suddenly, rocking alarmingly and only just staying upright. "We should get her autograph! Hemera! _Hemera!"_

The others joined in, wondering (like me) if Percy had a plan or if he had gone completely bananas. Piper and Jason quickly realised what was going on, and joined in as loudly as they could.

"NO! Hemera is my daughter! None are as mighty as Night! If you want an autograph, get mine!"

"BEGONE." A deafening voice rang out over the park.

A man materialised in front of Nyx, armed with a Celestial Bronze rod that crackled with electricity. Piper's eyes widened, and she bowed, kneeling down and lowering her head, giving Percy a tug as she did so. He bowed also, but begrudgingly.

Everyone else knelt too, as did I. This was clearly someone powerful, and I didn't want to be disrespectful.

"Nyx! Leave this world, and its demigods. They are of no concern to you."

"They are of every concern," she hissed, baring her teeth.

"Leave my realm and crawl back to Tartarus!" He made a gesture of warding away evil, and Nyx vanished with a rush of air like a sigh.

The man turned to face us, even as a glowing sports car landed behind him with a flash of golden light and a tanned youth jumped out. Strange, yes, but not the strangest thing I had seen that day.

"Dad! That was so not cool! I-" The youth stopped when the man gave him a withering glare. We lowered our eyes as he turned to us.

"Bowing, I see. Even Mr Jackson. I like it. You can look up now. And a thank you would not be out of order."

"Thank you, Lord Zeus," Percy said, his usual sarcasm replaced by exhaustion. He looked up at the lord of the sky with a broken gaze. Zeus? Zeus, Lord of the Sky? He had come to rescue us? Really?

"Dad, I-"

"Be _quiet_ , Apollo."

" _Dad_!" Apollo had seen the state of the three injured demigods. Well, he was the god of healing, so it would be the kind of thing that he'd notice? "You've gotta let me-"

"Leave us, Apollo."

" _What_?! Not cool!"

" _LEAVE_." Apollo jumped, wide-eyed, and climbed into his car guiltily. A second later, it had taken off in a blinding flash of light.

Zeus turned his stormy gaze back to us. "That will be your punishment for bringing that monster into this world. You shall suffer, through your self inflicted pain."

Percy's mouth opened slightly in shock, but he closed it before Zeus said anything and bowed his head again. "Very well, Lord Zeus."

Zeus nodded once, satisfied, and vanished in a puff of smoke. Percy glared daggers at the empty patch of grass that was smoking, almost condescendingly.

"Stupid sky gods!", he swore, although there was no conviction behind it. He was clearly too tired to curse the gods with any certainty, got unsteadily to his feet, and was caught by Jason as he very nearly fell back down again with a yelp of pain.

Jason quickly put an arm around him to take the strain off of his bad arm, and looked at Frank expectantly, who shrugged helplessly. "What? I'm still clueless at this whole praetor business! I haven't got the knack of summoning the eagles, and besides, CHB has way better healing facilities! Camp Jupiter is rubbish at looking after the injured. So, does anyone have any other ideas?"

Hazel pursed her lips, then shrugged and put two fingers to her lips, letting out a piercing whistle. Within seconds, a golden horse had materialised at her side. "Arion could carry them, but without a saddle they might not be able to hold on."

Piper looked suddenly downcast, but turned her head upwards, and called, "Mom!"

My eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but I figured that it would be some kind of useful godly figure.

"Yes, my darling?" came a melodious voice out of nowhere. I swear Annabeth visibly crumpled at the sound. Piper gritted her teeth and sighed.

"Please can you get us back to camp?"

"Get you back to camp? No problem. But, Piper dear, what _are_ you wearing?" The source of the voice had appeared.

She was, hands down, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Her blonde-brown hair shined immaculately, coming to a stop just below her shoulders. Her deep blue eyes gleamed and her face was probably the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I would continue the description but Hazel stamped on my foot before I could notice anything else. "Aphrodite. Goddess of beauty. You were staring."

I blinked at her. Maybe _not_ the most useful goddess, then. "Oh, right. Thanks."

"MOM! This is _not_ the time for a lecture on fashion! Does it matter what I'm wearing? It's called _practical_. You should try it someday."

"But, darling-"

"Get us back to camp. Please."

Aphrodite sighed and waved her hand, and the next second I found myself in the centre of the Omega shape of cabins at camp.

Hazel immediately ran off to find Chiron, while Will continued to: one, try and remain conscious, and two, keep Percy and Annabeth alive. Fun.

Hazel returned a minute later with Chiron, who took one look at us and galloped off to get the other healers.

After this, I was sent to change out of my armour and calm down. Plus, I had to stay at camp for a couple of days, to make sure that I was safe and all that. Chiron assured me that he had made arrangements with school about not being there, although I would have to catch up with the work.

That really helped my mood. Not.

Campfire was subdued that night, and I went back to the empty Poseidon cabin feeling somewhat stormy and depressed.

o0O0o

I didn't want to get up the next morning. I was tired.

But, when I was threatened that an Ares kid would kick the door in and pummel me, I got up and went to breakfast. We had Capture the Flag later, which was fun but left me with a riot of colourful bruises, to go with the ones that I had received during sword fighting practice in the morning with one of Annabeth's siblings, Malcolm Pace (I think), who told me that she wasn't out of the infirmary yet and neither was Percy.

"I don't think they're doing that well, but look if it makes you feel better, I'll come with you to visit them."

So, later on, Malcolm guided Ellie and I to the infirmary, although how he managed to convince Ellie, I don't know.

"They're over here. Will's got Kayla and Austin constantly looking after them and swapping shifts." I recognised Kayla Knowles from my brief time at Camp before we went back to Goode.

"Why isn't Will looking after them?"

Kayla giggled quietly at Ellie's comment, while checking Annabeth's temperature.

"He kinda collapsed yesterday. The other healers were going to place a rhyming curse on him if he did any more healing, so he's resting today and basically just telling everyone what to do. Believe me, the rhyming curses are hilarious and really quite annoying. But not quite as funny as the permanent make-up that the Aphrodite kids do. The Stolls looked like complete and utter idiots for an entire week."

I raised my eyebrows, but this sort of thing didn't really surprise me now.

By this point, we'd reached the two beds that housed Percy and Annabeth. Percy's mouth was open and a line of drool was coming out of his mouth. Annabeth was muttering incomprehensibly, I caught the words _Nyx_ and _Bob_. I still had no idea whatsoever who this 'Bob' guy was. Didn't sound like the kind of name that would belong to a deadly Greek monster.

Kayla perched back on the edge of her chair between the two beds. "They've been like this all the time they've been here, but they don't seem to be getting better. If you see this bruising on Percy's shoulder," she pulled down the collar of said demigod's shirt, "it's just not healing. We've tried feeding him ambrosia and nectar, dumping water over him. But he's neither waking up, nor healing."

She pushed her blonde hair away from her deep blue eyes.

Ellie pushed past her to Annabeth's bed, and lit her hand on fire.

I completely freaked out, thinking that she was spontaneously combusting or something. Malcolm, Kayla and I backed away from her.

"Woah, Ellie what are you doing?"

Ellie pushed the red hair out of her eyes with the non-flaming hand. "I think I know what I have to do."

I gestured to the fire in the palm of her hand. "Is that something Leo taught you?"

"Yeah, but it's something that Annabeth mentioned about how the Phlegethon heals. I mean, it's worth trying, right?"

Kayla looked uncertain, but backed away, letting Ellie take the helm. She closed her eyes, and muttered some words in Greek, which surprised me big time, as Ellie had never been great at Greek, at least when Percy and Annabeth tried to teach her, that is.

The flames in her hand went through a rapid series of different colours, settling on a deep red, like hydrogen was burning. Then it leapt suddenly up, five times higher than it had been, before folding in on itself and vanishing with a small popping noise as she finished the chant. Ellie staggered suddenly, exhausted from the effort, and was caught by Kayla, who sat Ellie firmly down on her chair.

Annabeth suddenly coughed, and opened her eyes slowly, as if it was very energy-consuming. "Ellie?" she rasped, "was that you?"

Ellie nodded."Yes…? How could you tell?"

"The Phlegethon tastes like burning gasoline," she moaned in that really anoying three-year-old whiny voice. "It's disgusting. And it burns your throat and makes you all raspy." She lay back on the bed with a slight laugh, loosening the tense mood.

"Sorry it tastes gross…" Ellie said, sounding a little lost.

"Oh, I'm thanking you, really. I mean, I have a splitting headache and feel like I've swallowed a chip fryer full of boiling oil, but I am _alive_ , I suppose."

"Oh, alright then."

" _No_ ," said Kayla flatly, as Ellie made to get up and heal Percy too.

"What? I'm fine!"

"Of course, and Nico di Angelo is the son of Aphrodite. _No_. You've already collapsed once. And I'm _not_ having a repeat of yesterday, when Will was showing zero signs of exhaustion or anything else, and then collapsed like a house of cards. That is to say, completely."

Kayla grabbed a chunk of ambrosia from a plate on Percy's bedside. "At least eat this first; I don't exactly like people passing out when they're healing someone."

Ellie accepted the ambrosia bar, then moved to Percy's bedside and repeated the healing process, this time without everyone watching nearly having a heart attack when she set her hand on fire.

I finally managed to get a grip of some of the Greek, hearing _Fire_ , _Bless and Father_. I was pleased with this. Usually when I translate Greek is goes from 'Apollo was the god of music' to 'Help! My house is burning'. And these words did actually make some kind of sense, which was good.

Ellie finished, and nearly hit the floor _again_ ; caught by Kayla, _again_.

Percy blinked very slowly a couple of times, as if trying to focus on the scene in front of him. "Why does my mouth taste like tabasco and gasoline mixed together? Because if you've been feeding me that weird thing we were trying to give to Festus last year, you are so dead."

Annabeth poked him from her bed. "No, idiot. Ellie just healed you!"

Percy's eyebrows rose up his forehead. "So she can heal us?"

He received a slow nod from Annabeth while I rolled my eyes. "And she has fire powers like Leo?" He sounded almost excited by the idea. Strange child.

"Yes, Seaweed Brain. Ellie is also a pyrokinetic."

"Awesome!" I would have thought that he was back to normal, except for the fact that he sounded listless and like he hadn't slept in days. He flexed his right arm experimentally, and it was clear from the look on his face that he wished that he hadn't. "Ouch."

"Yeah, well, Ellie can only do so much," defended Kayla. "She's never healed before."

"Woah, I wasn't knocking Ellie's healing skills! I was just stating a fact! And besides, I'd like to say thanks anyway. It's sore, yes, but it was chewed by sharp-toothed horses yesterday. It _was_ yesterday, right?" He turned to medic sitting next to his bed.

"Yes, it was yesterday," Kayla confirmed. "Why?"

"I just have a knack of staying unconscious for over a day. How long was it after the incident with the pit scorpion? Three days? Longer?"

"Okay. Well, it was yesterday."

"Look, I'm pretty sure that you extracted the dark evil stuff that was in that Black Iron thingy, which means that I should be fine now, assuming that I don't burn to ashes. Correct?"

"Correct," sighed Kayla. "Now, hate to say it, but shoo. These guys need rest."

"Wait one sec," said Ellie suddenly, "but I need to talk about the prophecy quickly."

"Go ahead," said Annabeth, ignoring the look that Kayla gave her.

"Well, it started with _Beware the storm_. Does that refer to the fight with Erebus?"

"Probably." Annabeth was looking pensive, which, as I had figured, usually meant that she was thinking. " _Never tire_. Well, that implies that they'll come after us again, doesn't it?"

"We already did. But yes."

" _Plague of ice_. That's obvious."

"Well, yes."

" _Reckoning at daybreak_. Well, we had that one too."

"Naturally."

" _Dark will flood o'er the sky_. Well, duh. It's the last line I'm worried about. _And when it does, the end is nigh_. It did, yes. But the end of what?"

"Could be anything, really. That's the trouble with prophecies. They're so damn vague."

"Is that without the 'n'?" asked Percy.

Annabeth flicked him from her bed again. "Irrelevant, Seaweed Brain. Anyway, it could be the end of our feud with Nyx. It could be the end-end of the Giant and Primordial War. It could be the end of the gods. Anything, really."

"Great."

"Now, please leave. Or maybe I'll call Peleus…" groaned Kayla.

"We're going, we're going!" Malcolm called as he grabbed us and ushered us out before we were attacked by an angry dragon. Who was overprotective towards Annabeth. _Very_ overprotective, apparently.

o0O0o

We were continuously coming up to the infirmary to visit Percy and Annabeth; Ellie healing them (read: _trying_ to heal them) if they got any worse. Malcolm and I generally just looked out for them, discussing what was going on around camp.

"-So now Travis has flowers growing out of his head."

I nodded slowly, processing. His eyes widened.

"And, duck!"

I obeyed, as a bristly flight of golden arrows sailed over our heads and buried themselves in the bull's eye of each target. I glanced up. The Apollo cabin showing off again. No surprise there.

What was a surprise is that, when we arrived, Annabeth was standing up, and attempting to pace around the room, with Austin supporting her. Malcolm's expression suddenly became one of worry. "Woah, Annabeth what are you doing up?"

"Need to get back to school. Renee..."

Ellie and I exchanged confused glances. Ellie stepped towards Annabeth cautiously. "Why do you need to talk to Renee?"

"The dreams, we need to talk to her about the dreams." Annabeth stumbled mid pace, and Austin grabbed her arm again to support.

Malcolm shot him a glare, before turning to me. "You're supporting this idea?"

"Not really!"

"Annabeth, you shouldn't be out of bed! You're gonna kill yourself!" Austin led her towards the bed, with her visibly resisting.

"Actually, Will told me earlier that I was through the worst of it," she retorted. "I have to speak to Renee!"

Malcolm's eyebrows furrowed in worry. "Do you _have_ to? Because you need to recover, no matter what Will says."

Annabeth smirked up at her brother. "Mal? You do realise that you are younger than me."

The blond boy scowled at her, defeated.

" _Fine."_

* * *

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	29. Renee I

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Renee Lindsay-Jones POV

Fine, I'll admit it. I was kind of surprised to see the weird bunch appear at school again after their week-long absence. And I wanted explanations.

Now.

 _For everything!_

I mean, they said they would explain, and then they go ahead and disappear for a couple of months. Great job at explaining, guys.

Annabeth appeared to have her arm in a cast while her boyfriend Percy was walking very, very slowly. They limped over to me, and Annabeth smiled weakly. "Hey, I guess we need to talk."

o0O0o

"I don't believe you!"

It was impossible, gods didn't exist. These two were absolute nutjobs; they seriously needed to get off of whatever they were on. I was tempted to yell in their faces, then call the teachers, then take them to a lunatic asylum, then punch them. Not necessarily in that order. On second thoughts, punching them might ruin my manicure.

Then I contemplated it; the possibility of all of them being on exactly the same crack and have exactly the same hallucination.

Also, Annabeth wouldn't do crack.

So. I guess the existence of gods _would_ explain a lot, such as that massive gas leak a year ago, and mass hallucinations. Were they of two suns? Random flashes of light? Or was that the year before? Yes, this year it was flying horses.

I brushed my perfectly styled hair out of my eyes. "Okay. So what do I have to do with this?"

"Those dreams you've been having. They are of things that actually happened. So far, the two people that have had similar dreams have also been demigods."

"So you're trying to say that I'm a half-god creep like you?"

"That's nice. But yes, you are quite likely to be a half-god creep like us. Sorry." She winced as I groaned. Loudly. "Yeah, well, please don't be too loud. I've got a permanent headache as it is. Side effect of being attacked by an ancient goddess of darkness."

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't speak to me and just leave now, okay?" I turned to go, blonde hair swishing behind me.

Annabeth grabbed my arm with her cast-free hand. Her grip was surprisingly powerful.

"Not okay. You have to listen to us, Renee! I fell out with pretty much half the camp and nearly killed myself to get here and speak to you! You can't just walk away! Your heritage is not something that you can just walk away from."

"Maybe not for you. But I know my heritage, and I'm _not_ one of you!" I pulled my arm free, making Annabeth stumble and swear, although it had to have been in some weird language, because it had a funny accent. And I know pretty much all of the swear words.

Neither made any move to come after me, probably to do with their 'injuries'. I mean, they had been virtual snails coming over.

o0O0o

I had another nightmare that night. I jumped down into a circle of giant people, swishing a jagged sword in front of me and yelling, not that I could hear what was being yelled. Within seconds I had been plunged into a ferocious battle, running around and stabbing anything that came close. One giant turned to ice when I stabbed it.

"Right!" I yelled, although the voice didn't belong to me. "Who wants to be the next Popsicle?" The giants were backing away, then attacked again, with far more ferocity. I was being overwhelmed.

I was going to die! Can you die in a dream?

The giants appeared to be taunting me, but the dream had gone silent again, until another voice cut through loudly above the clash of weapons.

"She's not alone."

I glanced up to see a small group arranged at the top of one of the columns. Yeah, I kinda forgot, I was in some creepy ruined Roman place or whatever. At the head was a pretty hot guy, with a gold sword that was crackling with lightning.

Cool.

There was a boy next to him, and a girl on a horse. Ugh, I hate horses.

Suddenly, a warship rose above the columns and fired-wait. Rose? It was flying? The ship fired, and then turned to me, a huge ball of creepy green fire rushing forwards...

I woke with a start, seriously considering taking up Annabeth's offer.

Drew was staring at me in anticipation. "You didn't take up Annabeth's offer, did you?"

I decided the best idea was to act confused at the question. "What offer?"

"The offer she made to you yesterday. The one that she came all the way here to give?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "How do you know about that?"

"Summer camp."

I stared at her. "Now _you_ go to that creepy summer camp as well?"

She rolled her eyes and wiggled her hands. "Yes, I do. It wasn't my idea!"

I flopped back onto my bed. "Do we have lessons today?"

"Yes. It's Monday, remember?"

"Ugh."

"Come on, Renee. We can see what the teachers have to say about the three vanishing students! Don't you just _love_ gossip?"

Damn, she was right as well.

" _Really?_ What time is it?"

"Wakey wakey time!"

o0O0o

The principal was furious about the vanishing students. It was hilarious. Percy, Annabeth and Ellie were all called to her office over the loudspeaker during Greek, and they sighed and limped out, as if expecting this kind of thing.

They came back after about half an hour. Ms Yew smiled at them apologetically. What was it with her and those guys? I mean, it's not like they were related or anything.

They stayed behind after first lesson to 'have a chat about why they were missing'. Yeah, right. I stayed by the door and listened in. I wasn't missing anything, it was the last lesson of the day. Homework would just have to wait.

"What happened to you three? And there's no point in lying. Michael often came back covered in bruises for no apparent reason. And then he didn't come back at all."

"Ms Yew, I am really sorry about what happened then. I could've just-"

"If Michael had his heart set on something, nothing you could have said would have changed anything, Percy. I don't blame you for his death, and never have."

I jolted back from the wall. Percy had been responsible for the death of Ms Yew's kid?

The conversation continued. "I know, I just wish that I could have done _something_. I mean, I was stood above the river! Sure, it was pretty polluted and stuff, but I should have done _something_."

Ugh, if this was just going to be a boring counselling session I wanted out.

"This is irrelevant. We were talking about this week, not about how you blew up Manhattan two years ago."

"Similar stuff happened. Primordial. Destruction. Swords. Stabby stabby. Ouchy. And here we are now, looking like we just fought in a huge battle. Which we did."

"Well, I should have guessed that, shouldn't I? Isn't that your whole life?"

"Pretty much. Wish it wasn't, but it is." He was really skirting around the subject. It was starting to annoy me.

"Well, then, I presume that you may be able to give a few details on the past week?"

"A few. We got to camp and Ellie got given a prophecy of doom. She chose us two to quest with her because we were experienced or something. We hadn't a clue where to start, as there were no directions in the prophecy, so we headed to New York."

Ok, random much.

"And then the first part of the prophecy came true - we nearly froze to death on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Then we met Moros, a son of one of our least favourite primordials. Nyx, in this case. Then he lobbed a few knives at us and I got hit. Yay. And, to add insult to injury, the knife was made of a weird metal that was worse than getting stabbed with Celestial Bronze or Imperial Gold. Yes. Double yay. Then we headed up to Big Z's throne room-" a rumble of thunder cut off what he said next. "-And nearly got us smited! Then we reached Central Park and got attacked by Erebus, and I went kinda dark and he got more than he bargained for. Then we woke the next day to a message from Mother Night herself, who then paid us a visit. Annabeth got hit badly by a weird darkness bolt, and I taunted Nyx, which in hindsight was a bad idea, and in return got walloped by a darkness bolt and chewed by her evil horses. Which, for the record, are incredibly rude and need their mouths washing out! Luckily for Annabeth's health and the functionality of my arm, we'd brought Will with us."

Wait, Will Solace? He's a demi-whatsit _too_ , now?

"He managed to keep us alive for a bit, until Lord Thunderpants himself showed up, shooed off Apollo so we couldn't be healed, and banished Nyx for a bit. Then we went back to camp and lay there for a few days, saying 'ow' a lot."

"I won't ask about 'kinda dark', shall I?"

"Good plan. You might lock me in a cell with padded walls. And machine guns for if I escape."

His attempt at dry humour was falling painfully flat. Maybe it was the fact that he was speaking as if he was trying not to think about something rather painful. Humour and pain don't really go very well together.

"I'm sure it won't come to that, Percy."

First name terms with the teacher? With _two_ teachers?

"I'm not. And I don't fancy telling you how I developed that particular skill, either."

"Skill?"

"Well, taking a primordial god and turning him into water. And scaring the hell out of Annabeth. No pun intended."

Pun? These people were weird.

"I won't push it any further. I just needed to know about what you did to injure yourself."

"And now you know."

"Yes. And, a suggestion for you, please."

"Yes?"

"Don't do anything reckless. I don't want you to suffer the same fate as Michael."

"There are worse things than death," Annabeth cut in, her voice flat. "Things that land you in counselling for the rest of your life and give you flashbacks and nightmares. Things like last summer, I guess."

Those two had counselling? Really?

"Yes, maybe. Good luck, though. How did the Greeks put it? Oh, I don't know. May the wind be ever strong in your sails, or similar."

"You too, Ms Yew."

Chairs scraped as they stood up. I started. Where to hide? I jumped over the corridor and pretended to be engrossed in my locker.

"How much did you hear?"

Annabeth wasn't going to beat about the bush, clearly. I put on my best confused face.

"Hear what?"

She glared at me. "Hear our conversation with Ms Yew? And don't lie, that doesn't get you anywhere."

"Not really anything, just a couple of bits and bobs."

She hardened her stare, making me feel like her eyes were going through me. "I said, don't lie."

"Fine! Everything!"

"And have you reconsidered our offer?"

"Of course not."

"Even after hearing all of that?"

"Yes." I stood up brazenly, determined not to back down in front of this other girl, who, despite being far stronger than me, was my age.

"Fine. Do you think we won't wash you in the River Lethe, the river that makes you lose your memories? Because we can if you'd rather be ignorant and killed by the monsters." She drew a vial of a milky liquid out of her bag and waved it in front of me. "See? One drop of this on your skin and you'll begin to forget who you are, Renee."

Percy stared at her, eyes wide. "You keep Lethe in your bag? Isn't that dangerous?"

Annabeth shrugged, before turning back to me, tossing the weird vial back into her bag. Percy flinched. "So are you going to agree or do we have to do this the hard way?"

I shrugged halfheartedly. "I'm not really willing to lose my memories, so I guess so."

"Excellent."

* * *

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	30. Ellie XI

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Ellie POV

I had to get back to school, too you know! It wasn't only Percy and Annabeth who went back! I was sent to 'look after them' by the Apollo campers and most of Annabeth's siblings. But, unlike them, I arrived back and unpacked like a normal person rather than chasing after the school's 'popular girl'. Hazel and Piper had gone back to school a couple of days before us, seeing as they weren't in danger of being expelled for absence.

Hazel's face lit up when she heard me enter. "I was wondering when you guys would turn up. Where's Annabeth?"

I shrugged. "Chasing after Renee; she's a suspected demigod."

Piper rolled her eyes. "We know that! By the way, Principal Bryant is furious with you guys. Teacher's don't exactly like it when people go missing."

Well, _nah_ , a teacher wouldn't mind if a bunch of students went missing for a while. "You don't say?"

Piper flicked one of her wayward braids out of her face. "Yeah. Lie low for a bit, I would. As in, turn up to lessons, do the catch-up stuff, don't die, that sort of thing."

I crossed my arms and stared at Piper. "Reassuring."

"That word doesn't exist in demigod dictionaries. Sorry."

"You know, I'm really loving being a demigod. You get to die with a bunch of clueless teenagers. Not the sort of thing I had in mind with my life, really."

Hazel stood up and folded her arms as well. "Yes, well. _I_ came back from the dead, so you stand need to talk."

She what? Did she actually come back from the dead? "Sorry?"

"I died. Spent eighty-odd years in Asphodel."

"And-?"

She shrugged cluelessly, while Piper just leaned against the wall, smirking. "The Doors of Death opened, and my also son-of-the-Underworld brother came and fished me out. He had tried to find his blood sister, but she had been reborn so I was sort of second best. Sister on the godly side is better than no sister at all, I guess."

Wow. "Right. Well, lie low, you said?"

"Along those lines."

Um...

Easier.

Said.

Than.

Done.

o0O0o

I found myself face to face with Felicity in Latin the next day. When she walked over to me I felt myself flinch slightly, waiting for her reaction to me going missing for ages.

"Hey." Her voice was surprisingly soft for someone who had been abandoned for ages.

"Um, hi?"

She slid into the seat next to me, leaning forward on her elbows. "I was wondering if you could help me with something; I heard you mention this before you left. So, I've been having some pretty weird dreams."

Oh, Hades. I turned towards her and sighed. "Uhh, I think I can help you. _But,_ if you come over to my room later I can explain, though it might take a while."

She nodded her blonde head, "Sure." She turned back to the textbook. " _Caecilius Metellaque in horto sedebant. Quintus discum patri emebat._ "

She glared at me to translate the sentence, as Ms Schaefer hovered above us.

"Caecilius and Metella were sitting in the garden. Quintus was buying a discus for his father." I rolled my eyes at the fact that we were doing this book, _again_. I mean if you've done Latin, you've done the Cambridge Latin Course. And we had covered this about seventy million times, as, with a few people well-versed in Latin, we had sped through most things. So going back to the CLC was a pain, but we wisely didn't say anything, fully aware that our new teacher would give detentions at the slightest notice. " _Quintus Metellae anulum emebat._ Quintus was buying a ring for Metella."

"Thank you." The dragon moved on. And so the lesson continued.

o0O0o

I dragged Felicity over to Percy and Annabeth, who were leaning against their usual tree, apparently too stiff to sit down or terrified of the idea of standing up again. "Felicitysaidthatshe'shavingweirddreamstoo," I blurted.

Annabeth raised an eyebrow. "Sorry?"

"Felicity-said-that-she'shavingweirddreamstoo."

"Speak a little slower, Ellie," Annabeth advised. "We can't tell what you're saying."

I took a deep breath and repeated it again,"Felicity says that she is also having the weird dreams."

"Ah. Well, could we politely ask Felicity to spill, then?" asked Percy, wincing as he shifted his position to stand little straighter and taller.

Felicity took on a thinking expression as she listed what she saw in the dream. "There was a creepy lady. Tall, wearing some sort of Greek outfit. She had a weird necklace."

I was slightly surprised by this because I'd seen it too, in one of my first dreams.

Percy frowned, while Annabeth continued. "Did the necklace look like a maze?"

Felicity's hand were fiddling with each other as she continued. I felt concerned, as I realised that the dream might have been quite painful to witness.

"Um, yes. Well, then she began to laugh, I think. The dream was silent. Then I was plunged into this maze, and ran to and fro, trying not to die but still furious for some reason. I think I hated being humiliated. Then I managed to do something, because we escaped the maze and the lady vanished. But then there was a sort of giant, but he was, like, made of smoke. He whacked me and I went flying, cutting some weird chain holding down a pair of doors."

She looked up, scared. Percy and Annabeth both looked a little green. I noticed Annabeth's streak of grey for the first time in ages and suddenly realised that it had only reappeared after the summer.

"Then the black and silver elevator doors opened." Percy finished.

"Um, yes. That's right. How do you know what happened?"

"We were there."

"You were, what? Sorry?"

Annabeth rolled her eyes, and leaned forwards. She started speaking very slowly. "We were there. You appear to be in Hazel's mind. Us two were the two who fell out of the elevator when the doors opened. Both of us now have a not entirely irrational fear of elevators."

Felicity's mouth formed an 'o' shape that I couldn't help laughing at. "Oh."

"Well, that's one way of putting it. Welcome to our messed-up lives." Percy bowed mockingly, then sort of stuck halfway with a wince, and had to be helped up by Annabeth.

"Smooth, Seaweed Brain. Smooth."

"Yeah, thanks. I must have forgotten that moving right now is death."

"Wow. So you're telling me that you _forgot_ that we got thoroughly beaten up at the weekend?"

Percy rolled his eyes at Annabeth, before leaning back against the tree. "Point is, we should probably try to work out who your parent is first."

Felicity's eyebrows furrowed in a really cute way, forming a crease on her forehead. "Work out what?"

Percy shrugged before wincing again.

Annabeth continued on from him, "Who your parent is. As in godly parent. Wait, have we not explained this to you? Long story short: the Greek gods are real, we're their kids and you probably are too. Oh, and, just to say, with awesome powers that _some_ of us get."

She cast a pointed glare at Percy, who gave a minute shrug, still wincing slightly at the tiny movement. "Our life expectancy also decreases significantly. If you get to thirteen, great. Seventeen, lucky. Adulthood, much rarer than you might think."

A series of emotions ran across Felicity's face."So, does that mean that all of you people are half-god?"

Annabeth smiled, clearly having had told a lot of people about their predicament before. "Yes, although the terms are 'half-blood' or 'demigod'."

A frown came onto the British girl's face. "Ellie is too?"

"Yes, Ellie is a very minor demigod with limited powers who does not attract much monster attention."

"Thanks. I love being called minor," I retorted. "Also, I have fire powers, if you haven't noticed."

"Being minor is good," Percy reminded me. "You don't die as much."

"That, as I discovered at the weekend, is not true!"

"Actually it is true. You chose the wrong peeps to hang out with."

"Percy's right," Annabeth said. "And he should really know. I mean, he's known he was a demigod for five years, and is also fortunate enough to be extremely powerful."

"Powerful?" Felicity was clearly struggling to add together 'Percy', who was, to make matters more difficult, also injured, with 'powerful'.

"Yes. He's the son of Poseidon, the sea god, who's one of the 'Big Three' elder gods."

"How many times am I gonna have to tell you, being 'powerful' really really sucks! No-one else sees the big picture! They get lost at 'power' and think, 'Gee, awesome! I wanna have powers too!' Yeah, well, it's not all cool. I can't go a week without attracting monstrous attention. And considering I'm on the naughty list of just about every god and goddess under the sun, I'm sure you can imagine that I wish that I could just swap places with someone else, even for a short while. Okay, rant over. Continue."

"Poseidon, like Neptune? As in like the god of the sea?"

Percy nodded, summoning a ball of water into his palm. Felicity's eyes widened like saucers. "The very same guy."

Felicity stared at him for a moment, mouth moving, but with no sound coming out. "Well, what happens now?"

"We will take you to camp and yell at the gods for being naughty and not claiming you before age thirteen. Then you'll get claimed and my girlfriend who actually knows and recognises the symbols of the gods will identify your parent and everything will be good."

"That's it?"

"Well, the Ares cabin might shove your head down the toilet, the Hermes cabin might prank or rob you and the Apollo cabin might hit you with a rhyming arrow. And then you'll have to take part in Capture the Flag and everyone will take turns to beat you up, but yeah. That's about it."

Felicity had turned slightly pale, and was still staring at Percy's hand where he was throwing the ball of water up and down. "Look, I am kidding, sort of. It only tends to be the people that appear irritating or weak that that sort of thing happens to. Like me, for example. I mean, Clarisse tried and failed to give me a swirly, and then beat the hell out of me during Capture the Flag. And then I got attacked and nearly killed by a hellhound, got issued with a prophecy and went to the Underworld." He counted them off on his fingers. "Yeah, that's about it for the first summer. Oh, wait. When I came back from the Land Below I nearly got killed by a guy who I had thought was my friend."

Annabeth seemed to shrink backwards into the tree a little at that.

"Um, may I ask how you nearly got killed by this dude?" Danny asked casually. I raised my eyebrows at his sudden appearance.

"Well, if you must know, he summoned a pit scorpion and set it on me. Nasty little things."

"So a guy tried to kill you with a scorpion. That sounds a bit of a pathetic way for a demigod to die."

"Yeah, it kind of is. I, like, fought it and everything. I was quite pleased, like 'Ha! Go to Hades, sucker!' And then I looked at my hand and went 'Oops, maybe I shouldn't have slapped it.' Yeah, fun times."

"Uh huh. The dryads actually had to drag you out of the woods, Chiron went crazy, and you couldn't stand for nearly a week," Annabeth admonished.

"Yeah, well, I've had nearer misses since."

"Suppose so. Well, off the point. The point is, we're going to need to get you to camp and try to-"

 _ **CRASH**_ _._

There was a sudden screaming coming from the girls dormitory building, and the faint wail of the fire alarm being set off.

There was a distant roar that sounded slightly like a bull and the sound of splintering wood, as the left wing of the old building imploded in a cloud of dust. Annabeth froze. "What was-?"

"That, Wise Girl, is the sound of a large stupid monster who really needs to learn the meaning of to word 'die'."

Her blonde eyebrows went into her hairline. "So that was-?"

"Yep. Cow face himself. That," he finally addressed us, "my friends, was the Minotaur."

I think that the shocked expressions on our faces registered from 'AGGHH!' to 'I'M GONNA DIE HELP ME I WANT TO RUN AROUND SCREAMING FOR A LONG TIME!'

Percy shrugged. "He's big and scary, but slow and dim in the brains department. If I can get myself actually standing and not relying on this tree here to stay upright, I should be able to kill it. Should." His calm demeanour shocked us all, including those of us who had seen battle. Percy pushed himself off of the tree, and nearly keeled over, rifling through his pockets for a minute before grabbing his deadly ballpoint pen. He staggered away from the trees and into the open lawn, looking for all the world like he was a hopeless drunk returning from a late party, until you saw how clear his eyes were, how focused.

He stood in the middle of the lawn with his feet planted, leaning subtly forwards as the dust cleared to reveal a silhouette of a man, ten feet tall and with two rather dangerous-looking horns sprouting from his head. He was wearing full Greek armour on his lower half, but his top half was so hairy that he was more bull than man. His head was so huge that it seemed he must topple over from the weight of the horns.

Annabeth caught me staring. "The horns are hollow. Now, BACK!" She ordered us all to stand safely away, well into the tree line.

"Annabeth!" Danny shouted. "We can't let him fight that thing alone!"

"You think I don't know that?" Annabeth's voice cracked. "You think that I like to stand back? Look, Danny, think logically. We haven't got weapons. We'd just be in his way. Just... stand back."

Danny obeyed, probably seeing the anguish in her eyes. I glanced back up. The Minotaur had spotted Percy, and grunted something, as if trying to figure out in his tiny brain whether or not to attack. Percy stood in the middle of the lawn, completely alone.

Storm clouds that had not been there a second ago had gathered overhead, and, as we watched, rain began to fall, pelting us with stinging droplets. He was staring down the beast, goading it to attack.

Clearly it saw him and thought it would be easy to destroy one demigod on his own. Maybe he recognised him. Who knew.

But, anyway, the Minotaur lowered his head like a bull, horns forward, and lumbered forwards in a charge, gaining speed and roaring deafeningly.

At the last possible moment, winds whipped around Percy, shielding him slightly from the impact, and his drew his sword, a flash of lightning in the darkness. His sword flashed as the two crashed together, Percy ducking to avoid the horns and swinging up with the blade.

The Minotaur roared again, although whether in pain or triumph I couldn't tell. The rain ceased abruptly and the wind died. The Minotaur was gone.

Percy lay on his back in the middle of the grass, and let out a groan as we sprinted over. "Ow. Charging bulls are heavy."

Annabeth practically screamed in frustration. "You idiot! You complete and utter idiot! Don't _do_ that to me! What happened?" Her change in emotion was almost funny. One moment a screaming Fury, the next caring.

"I had an idea. Wasn't my best ever."

"You've never got good ideas, Seaweed Brain."

"They're not always bad…"

"Yeah, well. I'm no healer, but I can tell you're hurt. What happened?"

Percy stuck his tongue out. "I was hurt before this all happened, for your information."

"I know that! Ugh! What else hurts?"

"How about everything?"

"No, I'm serious!"

Percy counted out the pain on his fingers. "Fine, ribs. I did say that possessed cows were heavy and fast when charging? Um... my left. arm, my left leg, my entire left side. And my right elbow. I may or may not have dislocated it when swinging my sword. I mean, I can't move my fingers so something's happened."

"But your back is okay? I'm serious, a crash like that could have easily-"

"Nope, back's fine. Just about the only part of me that is. I think my ribs took the blow. I mean, I can't really breathe."

"What?"

"It's fine. I'm breathing shallowly so I don't make it worse."

"Okay."

I stepped forward, trying to light my hand to heal him, but the fire wouldn't come. Maybe I could only heal sickness and not injuries? Maybe I just couldn't do it under stress? Whatever the reason, we were going to need a proper healer, which, as a matter of fact, we were all out of. So yay.

"Where is the Apollo cabin when you need it?" Annabeth raged, punching the ground. "Wait. Where's Peter?"

She was answered by Hazel, Renee and Peter limping out of the wreckage of the dormitory blocks. Renee was wrapped in flower roots and Peter was holding what looked suspiciously like a first aid kit.

"Hey. Sorry we weren't here earlier. Renee suddenly found her powers coming to light. Luckily these peep's dorm is in the right wing of the block, which is kind of standing." Percy tilted his head to see Peter.

"Is that a first aid kit?"

"What? Oh, I think so."

"You _think_ so?"

"It was under Hazel's bed! So Hazel said it was _probably_ a first aid kit."

Hazel shrugged. "It was a gift from Dad. I didn't know what was in it."

She opened up the box, which contained the familiar lemon square-like ambrosia and small bottles of clear liquid - nectar. There was also a roll of bandages, and some plasters. Handy.

Peter looked slightly skeptical, and rifled through the box for a second, producing a pair of scissors, tweezers, and more bottles of a different liquid. This was also clear, but had a subtle tinge of mother-of-pearl colouring. "Ah ha! None of your dumb Greek stuff! This, I know how to use!"

"Well, that's fantastic," Percy sighed. "Can you please just get on with it? This patch of ground is giving me backache."

"What? Oh, alright, if you insist. Go away, you lot. People watching makes me get things wrong."

So we left. Simple. Annabeth grabbed Percy's sword from where it lay a few inches from his fingers and hid it in a bush. "Just in case" was what she said. She then proceeded to pace to and fro under the trees as fast as her injuries would allow her, looking a lot like a caged lioness and absolutely terrifying. I swear the grey streak got more pronounced. She appeared to age ten years in the five minutes Peter was 'healing' Percy [note quotation marks, I still don't think he knew what he was doing].

After this time she threw up her good hand and stalked over to Peter, swatting him casually with her cast to get his attention. There was a lot of hand-waving in the 'conversation' [read: argument] that followed.

By this time a few of the braver students had ventured out from their hiding places and were gaping at the wreckage.

Annabeth refused to leave again, and appeared to be helpful, because it was only a couple of minutes later when Percy was sitting up (of a description) and able to talk in full sentences. Standing might take considerably more effort, but it was an improvement.

Every now and then he'd wince and rub his leg, but it seemed that the ribs issue was solved, which was good, as you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to know that badly broken ribs can be a major problem.

Nearly half an hour later, Ms Yew came out, possibly because she was the only female teacher not wearing six-inch stilettos and a pencil skirt. "There is talk," she said flatly, no-frills, no beating about the bush, just straight to the point, "of a ten-foot tall man with the head of a bull. Please tell me that wasn't you."

"I wish that I could say that, Ms Yew," Annabeth said. Some story she'd told me had said about her possessing a silver tongue. "-but I'm afraid that I would be lying. That was the Minotaur. Beast of the Labyrinth, killed by Theseus, yada yada yada. The very same beast who led the army onto the Williamsburg Bridge two years ago, I'm afraid."

"That monster led the charge?" Ms Yew's voice had dropped from stern to a whisper.

"Yes," Percy rasped. "The very same one. I killed him then, I killed him now. You'd think they'd learn that they're not welcome here. Although, I do have to admit, even though we sort of won, the Bridge was a massacre. It was my fault, Ms Yew."

"For the last time, Percy, I don't blame you for what happened then. Sure, you were there. There were a lot of people there."

"There weren't a lot of people who knew that he wasn't coming back if I did it, but did it anyway."

"His sacrifice helped you to win the war, no?"

"That it did, I suppose. We realised the real cost. This wasn't a game, it was real. We also broke the enemy's morale by killing one of their warlords and driving their leader back to Brooklyn."

"Their leader was there?"

"Indeed he was. He didn't join in the fighting. He stood at the side and laughed as my friend and fellow commander fell and Annabeth here was stabbed in the shoulder. Not my favourite day. Night. Whatever."

Mrs Yew continued to stare at our little group, "I assume that you need to go back to Camp. _Again_."

Percy nodded. "I don't think that will be an issue, considering that mass destruction has reigned upon our school. I find it likely that the school will be closed anyway."

Annabeth grimaced in the direction of Mrs Yew. "Sorry, but it's not really our fault that Beef Head turned up and destroyed the school. We just happen to be the people he was coming after."

If teachers facepalmed, I think that Ms Yew would have done. "Still, still I will make excuses for you - go on, get to camp, then."

Percy gave a taxi cab whistle to call Blackjack (whistling before doubling over and hissing, but still alive. Which was fortunate, considering the rage Annabeth was in.). Felicity and Renee looked around in anticipation.

The black horse spiralled in from above us, and Percy whispered something to Hazel before he whistled again, sending the shrill sound through the air. A clump of shadows gathered around the tree before a dog the size of a garbage truck appeared in the middle of the lawn.

Renee screamed and then fainted. There was a second explosion, which, looking at Percy's face, was not caused by him. Not on purpose, anyway.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Updates should keep coming thick and fast over the next couple of weeks, as we have essentially no decent homework. See you soon!**

 **PS. The Latin was actually correct and the CLC is honestly so boring, but you get really attached to the characters.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	31. Danny XI

**Uhh, hi? Here: have some Danny POV. Action. Yay?**

 **P.S. There's a really long AN down at the bottom that might explain some stuff if you're a regular reader.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Danny POV

There were students running and screaming everywhere. Smoke rose from the shell of what had been the Humanities block.

I cringed as something trailing green flames hit the Science block, which exploded because of the chemicals. We all fell flat on our faces and nobody got hit by shrapnel. Luckily.

The enormous black dog had, by then, reached us and was methodically licking Percy's face, seemingly unconcerned that there was something or someone throwing bombs around the school. We stood up slowly, looking more like a bunch of kids badly cosplaying superheroes than anything else.

Percy nudged Annabeth. "Go for weapons, before it gets worse. Go!"

She gave him a scathing look, before turning and legging it towards what was left of the school buildings. Ellie watched but didn't follow. Felicity looked scared out of her mind. I tried to look cool and used to this kind of thing, but it seemed that only Percy was really 'comfortable' with this level of destruction.

"Percy? What happens now?" I wasn't sure who asked; it could have been anyone.

"I dunno. Usually I'd suggest running towards the explosion, but, considering I can neither run nor drag a bunch of newbies, no offense, guys, into it, we'd better wait for Annabeth. She usually has a plan."

He uncapped his sword, and a shape in the flames turned and pinpointed him. "Oops. Maybe it can sense Celestial Bronze. Eh. Step back, peeps. I have no idea what is about to happen."

This was followed by a loud, drawn out swear word. Once in English, once in Ancient Greek. Just to be certain. Ms Yew looked at him sharply, but, upon turning back to the fire, we all saw that he had a point.

There was a something emerging from the flames. It moved with a panther-like hunter's stride, but I would have far preferred it to be a panther, instead of what it was: a hybrid of several animals. It had the body of a lion, but two heads: one was like that of a lion, the other of a goat (?). It also had a snake instead of a tail. And it breathed fire. Overkill.

Percy gulped.

Ms Yew went pale. "Is that-?"

"A Chimera. Yup. Oh, by the way, it's poisonous. Thought you might like to know. And the last one I fought wore a diamond collar so you can't cut it's head off. And it has human-standard intelligence. So." Percy sighed, "At least it's not a chihuahua this time."

"A chihuahua? Why is this at all relevant?"

Percy pointed a finger at Renee, and started to rant. "Listen, if you want to survive life as demigod you have to learn not to trust dogs. Unless they are a poodle that's letting you turn it in for a ride west." What? "Actually, I'm kidding. But the Chimera was one of the first monsters I ever fought. After the Minotaur. And a hellhound. That is, if you count fighting it as being attacked while the Apollo kids shoot it full of arrows. But anyway." Percy gestured towards the garbage truck dog, "No, don't kill my pet. She might be a hellhound, but she's a good hellhound. Right, Mrs O'Leary?"

Right, he's lost it. It's official.

"Uh, Percy…"

He glanced up. "Yeah, Felicity? What? The Chimera's behind me, isn't it? Yup. Okay. Don't panic. I'll try to not die."

And, on that cheery note, he stepped out of the circle and towards the Chimera.

Percy faced the Chimera, brandishing his sword in front of his face. "Hey, is your mommy not here to protect you this time?"

The Chimera hissed at Percy, pulling back his lips and snarling viciously. Our group was quaking with fear, but Percy didn't seem to notice the threat, swinging his sword casually and narrowing his eyes. "I see that you are still wearing your collar. Won't make that particular mistake again, you know."

The Chimera stayed exactly a metre and a half away, just out of the range of Percy's sword. But not so far that it couldn't strike itself. Noxious gas rolled from the goat's mouth, making my eyes water and my skin burn. Soon my vision was obscured by gas and a prism of tears.

So much so that I didn't see the moment when the Chimera struck.

o0O0o

I woke up in the infirmary with a stabbing pain in my leg, and a blond thing right in front of my eyes. Whatever it was, it was bright and hurting my eyes.

"Guys, he's alive!"

I rubbed my ears. "Dude! Wha'-happened? Did I get bitten by the thingy?" I blinked and the room came into slightly blurred-edged focus.

Will turned out to be the blond thing. I turned my head slightly to see Percy to my left. He had a bag of frozen peas held to the side of his face, but overall looked in better shape than I felt, which was depressing, as he was already injured. "'Sup."

"How am I alive?"

Percy shrugged, motioning around with his hands. "You're a son of Triton, so I figured you would probably heal with water as well. And you did. Mostly. We also gave you some ambrosia and nectar."

Will nodded, before bringing a glass of water over to me. "You healed up pretty well. I mean, you were smoking when Percy and Annabeth got you here."

I practically choked at that. "Smoking? Like grey stuff was coming off of me?"

Percy nodded violently, then winced and shifted the frozen peas. "It's scary watching people smoke and start to go grey."

Will stared at him, eyebrows raised. "Yeah, you don't say."

I interrupted what was clearly going to be a long conversation, I sat up a bit more in my bed. "Well, I guess I'm alive, so is anybody going to fill me in on what happened?"

Percy clasped his hands together. "Well, the Chimera was spewing this gas, I'm sure you noticed. Well, I have dodgy lungs so I was, like, choking on the ground, and then you got bitten. No-one could see anything. It's my fault. I was the only one who was armed. The only reason we could even tell it attacked was because you screamed."

"What happened to the Chimera?" I coughed.

"It ran off. I couldn't catch it. Did manage to hit it, though. I hope that was enough to make it die. Unlikely, though." Percy winced as he sat further up in his chair.

"Where's Annabeth?"

Percy and Will exchanged shifty glances. Will leaned towards me, his voice coming out as just a whisper, "Well, uhh, you see, one of your classmates wasn't as lucky. Annabeth's telling the victim's siblings."

Oh gods, not anyone I know, not anyone I know _that well_.

"Plus she's surveying the wreckage, seeing if the school can be rebuilt."

I glared at the two of them in front of me. "You're not telling me everything. Who died? Be straight with me, both of you."

Will's teeth tugged at his lip. "Erm, I don't think that you-"

I leaned further forwards, as far as my strength allowed me to. "Tell me!" I felt like I was practically shouting; the silence that followed it rang through my ears.

Will held out his hands in a 'slow down' gesture. "No, no, you shouldn't be dealing with stress or trauma so soon after injury. We'll tell you when-"

He made an attempt to push me backwards on to the bed, and I shoved him off, rotated so that I was positioned to get out of bed, tried to stand, and collapsed against the bedpost.

"Tell me, gods dammit!"

Percy abandoned the peas and shoved me back onto the bed. "We'll tell you if you stop being stupid. You're not going to be able to stand for a while."

I flopped backwards onto the pillows, almost sighing in relief at how comfortable they were.

"Fine. Now tell me."

I tried not to look as guilty as I felt as Percy sat slowly back down and massaged his head. Now that he'd removed the peas I could see that half of his face had swollen right up with several red lines down it; he was going to have one hell of a black eye.

"It was Renee. The Chimera got to her while we were trying to sort you out. Hence the facial clawing." He gestured to his face.

Will threw a sponge at him, which he held up in confusion. "Will? Why have you thrown a sponge at me?"

Will folded his arms, and took on a stubborn expression. "Guess, Seaweed Brain."

Percy wrinkled his nose in confusion, "Do I really smell that bad? And, besides, only Anna gets to call me that."

Will ignored the 'Seaweed Brain' comment. "No, you blockhead. Clean your face. There's nectar on the table."

"How was I supposed to tell that?"

"It's not flying boat mechanics!" Flying boat mechanics? I get that I'm new to this world of demigod stuff, but it's a pretty weird saying.

Percy pouted, "No, it's not that easy! I get flying boat mechanics!"

Will raised his eyebrows. I have a feeling he does that a lot. "Liar."

Percy shook his head, using weird hand gestures to make Will understand. He had a lot of flapping involved. "No, no, I actually helped with some repairs over the summer. Just say what I need to do next time, please?"

Will rolled his eyes before humming a little tune. "Whatever. Just, seriously, clean your face. Else you'll end up with a scar that looks like you've been attacked by a rabid poodle."

Percy squeezed the sponge over the sink in the corner of the room, before wiping his face up. Inspecting his face in the mirror he muttered, "The claw marks are a little far apart for a poodle."

Will sighed and rolled his eyes (again). "Fine, I dunno. I don't watch any TV shows about that kind of thing."

"It's not difficult! But, anyway, a poodle's paw would fit between these scratches. There is no way that it could be a poodle. A dragon maybe?"

Will huffed in annoyance. I had the feeling that Percy was about to get punched on the good side of his face.

"How would you explain to normal people why you had claw scars that were too far apart for any kind of pet?"

Percy shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'd say I had a run with with the Wolverine. He's the guy with claws, right?"

"And _that's_ believable, isn't it? And yes, Wolverine is the one with the claws."

"Good. I got a superhero reference right. And, come on, it's as believable as calling me Aquaman."

Will groaned and put his hand on his forehead. "No, no, you're getting it wrong! Aquaman is DC, Wolverine is Marvel. Not the same!"

"Superheroes. It's all the same."

"Is not. DC do Batman and Superman. Marvel do X-Men and Avengers. Tut tut, Jackson. I thought you'd know that kind of thing."

"We could hardly afford enough beer for Gabe, let alone hire about fifty million superhero movies."

"Well then, I'd better lend you my Marvel collection. You can watch those. No, I don't have them all. You'll have to get them off somebody else. I think the Stolls might have them."

"Of course. I think you might find that the Stolls have exactly the same ones as you and that yours are no longer where you left them."

Will folded his arms crossly. "Eh, probably. Anyway, wash your face. Don't complain, I know it stings, blah blah blah. I need to go rescue my comic books and DVDs."

"You'd make a terrible kid's doctor," Percy called after him.

Will turned around and crossed his arms for one last time. "Percy, I am a kid's doctor. In fact, I'm a kid doctor. Now just get on with it. Danny, lie down. If you move so much as a muscle before I get back, you are going to die."

Then he left, shutting the door behind him. Percy took one last look at the sponge and sighed.

o0O0o

Three days later, I was actually on my feet. Percy still had the blackest of black eyes I have ever seen, before or since, but the swelling had gone down.

The sun had just about finished setting, and I was in the middle of watching Will and Percy argue over eating more ambrosia ('It'll help!/ 'I'll burn to ashes!'/ 'No you won't, you'll be fine!'/ 'I have a low godly food tolerance!') when Miranda Gardiner ran into the infirmary, dressed sombrely in black.

"We're about to hold the funeral for our unknown sister."

The two boys turned as fast as scalded cats.

Percy's partial grin dropped off of his face. "Renee? But she was never claimed?"

Peter was walking in behind her. "Actually she was claimed right before the dormitory block got demolished. A weird scythe thing hovered above her head. I'm pretty sure that's Ceres' symbol, isn't it?"

Miranda nodded quickly. "So, we're about to burn the shroud."

Percy jumped up [read: attempted to jump up]. "Where's Drew?" He received weird looks from the rest of us. "You know how they were friends? They always sat together and they shared a dormitory for half a year. She might want to light it."

Miranda's mouth dropped into an 'o' shape of realisation. "Oh, right! That explains why Drew hasn't come out of her cabin for three days."

Percy sighed. "Okay, well, now that I've cleared the water for you, would you like to go and fetch her? I might be able to get myself and Danny here down to the pyre by the time you've found her and dragged her from her cabin."

Miranda nodded and darted out. Percy helped me to my feet (yes, I was still unsteady. Chimera poison is a toughie) and acted as a human crutch as we made our way down to where the rest of camp was gathered by the lake. We got there eventually.

Annabeth was at the head of the pyre with Chiron, where a small brazier was burning about a metre away.

Ellie turned from where she was stood towards the back and waved us over. She looked like she hadn't slept for days.

"I still feel like this was all my fault."

"Ellie, if anyone is to blame, it's me," Percy pointed out. "I was the only one armed, and I should have killed the Chimera, regardless of the personal cost. It shouldn't have been alive to get to either Danny or Renee. There is no way you are responsible."

Ellie nodded minutely, then turned to where Drew had appeared at the brazier. Her face was red and blotchy, and it was the only time I had ever seen her without any makeup on.

But she still took the torch and lit it on the brazier, before reverently touching the golden flower to the edge of the green fabric that covered the body. As the cloth came alight Drew broke down again, tears splattering the fabric and having little effect on the rising flames.

One of the girls from her cabin ran up onto the raised platform, and supported her as she came down the steps towards the little crowd of Aphrodite children.

The blonde girl, Stacy(?), patted her on the back slowly, I think she was a bit unsure of what to do - it was Drew, after all.

* * *

 **Yay, one annoying OC down, one more to go. Yep, that's right. We are killing off two of our OCs, but who else? Mwa ha ha! (Comment below with reasons, we want to see who you think it is.)**

 **Just to warn you guys, we have our summer holidays coming up in a couple of weeks (two exactly) and that will definitely mean that there will be very infrequent updates for the next two months or so. We'll try, but we'll probably fail. Uhh, we have Sports Day next week and also we're going to see 42nd Street in the West End the week after, so still this might be one of the last few guaranteed ones before it drops off. We will try to get in another chapter on Monday, but we can't really make any guarantees. Sorry.**

 **This story is not going to be abandoned. It's literally pre-written. Please don't give up on us!**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	32. Felicity I

**Hi guys, we've just worked it out and we might have three or four updates before the holidays, but we're not sure. Um... This chapter is pretty weird. Lots of chopping about and a random thing that we threw in for literally no purpose.**

 **We have no clue what we were thinking at the time. It was ages ago.**

 **And guess which one of us just spent ten quid on worldwide shipping to get a hard copy of the PJO musical. That's right, me (AHermioneH).**

 **I'm an idiot.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

* * *

Felicity Minchin POV

I stared wordlessly at the flaming piece of cloth in front of me, as Ellie put an arm around my side.

I may not have liked Renee, but I had shared a room with her for half a year.

We'd had our ups and downs, but she'd been there for me at times when I needed a friend. (Well sort of, I could always complain about messy hair or runny mascara to her.)

I looked around the arena at the other crowds of people, each sitting under a coloured banner, where Drew was sitting with the majority of the Aphrodite campers.

Percy and Danny were leaning against a tree, clearly trying to find the strength and effort to sit down on the logs that had been put out in place of chairs. They got there eventually.

We stood and watched the scarlet and golden sparks dancing into the inky sky, as if they were Renee's spirit taking it's place among the stars.

I saw a girl who I think was called Miranda was preparing a small pile of notecards, and her eyes were slightly red for a sibling she didn't even know. Somehow I got the feeling that this wasn't the first funeral that most of the kids here had seen for a sibling.

Miranda tapped the microphone. "I am so sorry for the loss of Renee. I'm sure this will have impacted all of you who knew her and those of us that didn't are sorry that we didn't get to meet her. According to Felicity, her roommate," I smiled weakly at the mention, "She wasn't the best of friends but she cared a lot about everyone she knew. She was feisty, brave and independent. She was a very popular girl with so many friends that we couldn't find all of them to apologise to. I'm sure I would have loved her as a sister and our entire cabin would like to make it clear that we love her even if we didn't know her." At this point a girl with bright turquoise hair came up and placed a bouquet of flowers on the ashes of the shroud and body. The Demeter cabin members all linked hands in a circle around the pyre, and, from the ashes, a beautiful rose climbed upwards, before bursting and showering us all in red rose petals like scented confetti.

There was no campfire that night. Even the Hermes cabin went straight to bed.

o0O0o

The next day I received word that all of the students of 'Goode High / Court House School' were to attend some kind of meeting the following day. Seeing the different responses of each person as I told them was really quite amusing.

Percy sighed.

Annabeth nodded and said that she had been expecting it sooner or later.

Danny outright refused. "Nope! I am not going! Say I'm bed-bound or something. I am not going! No way! I can't walk and I don't trust Leo's mechanical crutches. No!"

Leo seemed to take offense at that comment, and staggered out as if Danny had mortally wounded him.

Will vanished for three hours, and eventually reappeared holding a pair of suspiciously normal-looking hospital crutches. "Here. I knew that I had these somewhere!"

"Are these actual crutches or have they just been made to look like actual crutches?"

"Nope, these are actual crutches, from when I fell down the stairs and broke my foot three years ago."

Percy stared at him in a mixture of shock and confusion.

Danny was mirroring his expression. "You went to an actual hospital?"

Will shrugged his shoulders, completely ruffling his medic shirt. "We had a babysitter in. And I'm clumsier than you might think. Also, I was twelve!"

"Oh. So these are guaranteed to not explode in my face?"

"Should be. I think they were well enough hidden from the Stolls."

Danny took them gingerly from him. "Well, thanks."

Will held out his hands in a 'wait' motion. "Yeah, I'm gonna put a sort of cast on your leg so that it looks as though it's been done at an actual hospital. Is that okay?"

Danny shrugged in a carefree sort of way before raising a hand to rub his shoulder. "Yeah, fine. Whatever. Something tells me that this isn't going to be the hardest thing that you're going to hide. Anyway, why are you going to school with us? You were only there for the first couple of weeks."

"If you're talking about Percy's face, I'm gonna stick on some butterfly stitches to explain the scarring when he goes back to school, wherever he ends up. Also, I need an education as well. I was a sophomore at the other half of the school and then I got moved up a year. I am now a junior."

"I was actually thinking about how you had that weird allergic reaction yesterday and your

foot went a very unsubtle shade of neon green."

"I'm going to wear socks. And trousers. And nobody is going to mention my foot."

"If you say so."

"I do say so. It's all going to be fine."

Of course it was.

o0O0o

We were late. We had been trying to 'go incognito' to get there, which involved driving up to the nearest hire place and hiring a minibus that didn't have 'Delphi Strawberry Service' plastered all over it.

Then we got lost.

Well, it wasn't as if we could have a blue guy completely covered in eyes driving us around, was it? We were trying to be subtle.

So Percy drove.

With hindsight, maybe it was a bad idea, considering he couldn't really see out of one eye. But we made it in one piece, which was fortunate. And we only broke down twice (Leo 'fixed' it).

Percy parked in the last empty bay and we all jumped out of the minibus and ran [read, staggered] into the meeting as fast as our various injuries allowed us.

Danny accidently squished my foot with his crutch, which he was still having trouble using. He looked like an unsteady fawn with one leg shorter than all of the others, and veered from side to side as though he was drunk. We sat down in the back of the hall, and pretended to look interested as the principal made a long speech about how sad they were that Renee had died and how terrified they were of the 'fell creatures' that had reduced their school to ashes.

After a good half hour of listening to this, Ms Yew got up from where she was sat at the side of the hall and practically shoved the principal off of the mic.

"As I'm sure you are aware, unexplained creatures attacked our school a week ago. Does anyone know what they may be?"

Her gaze panned casually over the students, before coming to rest on us. The whole thing felt very unsubtle.

Annabeth appeared to be calculating something, but that might have just been her resting expression. She had a hand on Percy's arm, as if he was a bad dog she had to hold by the collar.

Percy shrugged. "If you don't go, I'll go."

Annabeth whisper-shouted at him, arms crossed. "Don't be an idiot! You're gonna give us away!"

"No I won't. I'll just say that I saw it. I did see it. It won't be lying." He stood up slowly, then walked slowly, but purposefully towards the front of the hall.

Whispers were beginning to fly around, probably along the lines of: 'What does he know?' or 'What happened to his face?'.

Ms Yew smiled slightly as he came up and stood in front of the microphone.

"Yes, I was there when the monsters attacked. You can probably tell. If my memory serves correctly, I do believe that these monsters appeared to be figures from Greek mythology."

Wait, he was speaking formally? Percy Jackson knew how to speak formally?

"The first monster to appear closely resembled the Minotaur, and the second a Chimera. The Minotaur look-alike did a lot of damage to the buildings and scared the students, but it didn't harm anybody. The Chimera, on the other hand, directly engaged both myself and Danny Robinson, and killed Renee. I don't know very much, if I'm totally honest. It was creating some sort of toxic smoke screen that made it impossible to see it or anybody else. It just divided us up and attacked us one by one. Then the Chimera just inexplicably vanished, and we were left to collapse. Luckily Ms Yew gave us permission to leave the grounds and have our wounds looked at by her stepson, who specialises in animal injuries. I don't know what exactly happened. For all I know, the whole thing could have some sort of cosmic joke with an escaped lion. If it was, I must admit I don't see how it was funny."

Principal Bryant still had a slight frown on her face after being shunned from the podium, but she nodded in approval as Percy slowly limped to the back of the hall where we were sitting.

Danny looked very guilty upon seeing that Percy was still limping.

I, on the other hand, was still confused about what was going on. So far all I could understand was: the Greek Gods are real; Percy was generally being chased by monsters; Ellie had weird fire healing powers; and finally, everyone was injured.

I didn't understand what the heck I had to do with it.

I wasn't a part of their weird world, was I?

o0O0o

"What the Hades are we doing back here?" Leo slammed his hands down on the lunch table, somewhat over dramatically.

Then again Leo is an overly dramatic person.

"Nyx is still out there! She could be plotting our deaths as we speak!"

Annabeth shushed him, flapping her hands in Leo's general direction.

Percy put his elbow on the table before grimacing as he jarred his bad arm. "Schist!" He hissed loudly as he cradled his arm.

I frowned at this, confused at the choice of language.

Annabeth gave me look that simply said: 'Don't.' Hazel was quietly laughing behind her hand, her curly hair falling in front of her eyes.

Piper had crinkled up her nose in distaste at the language Percy had used, "Can you use something gentler like 'Holy Hera'?"

"Can we not mention _her_? She took away, like, my entire sophomore year!" Percy grunted at the end of his sentence. "Anyway, it's better to be inconspicuous in a school. _Especially_ considering that the Mist isn't working anymore. Nyx wouldn't want to - though it might seem like she would - reveal us to the mortals."

Ellie opened her mouth to speak, before thinking and swallowing whatever she was going to say.

Annabeth leaned forward, her face showing all of her anger.

"You don't understand! She doesn't care! If she had it her way the mortals wouldn't exist, neither would the gods and neither would we! She's not gonna wait for the Mist to reboot! If she wants us dead, which she does, she's gonna attack and kill us. Simple. She'll keep coming back until we've been wiped off the face of the freakin' Earth! And we're sat here gossiping like fishwives!"

Percy stared at her, mouth hanging partially open. "Fishwives?"

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! Don't forget to review and stuff - they're StormSunfire's lifeblood.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	33. Interlude III: Ellie XII

**Uhh, hi? Is anybody there? Anyway, here is a tiny and adorable fluffy chapter. We're posting 2 today: be warned. This is the first.**

* * *

Ellie POV

After our discussion at lunch with the rest of the group, Felicity, or Flic as she insisted on being called, dragged me into her dorm room and sat me down. "Listen, we need to talk."

"And why can't we do this in the cafeteria?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, and sat down beside me. "I've been trying to do this with you for a while now; don't ruin the moment. What are we?"

I assumed she didn't mean demigods.

"Uhh, I guess we're friends right now." This clearly wasn't the response she wanted; her lips pulled down into a frown and her eyebrows scrunched together. I wanted to grab her shoulder in a somewhat desperate manner. "But," I drew her attention to me again. I took a deep breath. "We can be more... I-if you want."

Flic's eyes flicked straight up to mine as I said that, a light shining within them. She fumbled around with her hands a bit, laying each of them over the top of the other. "Sure." The words came out of her mouth quickly and eagerly. I found it adorable, she clearly didn't; she tried to cover it up by saying: "Uhh, I mean sure." She tried to drag out the 'u' sound in sure, trying to look cool and unbothered, but failed. Miserably.

I leaned closer towards her, making the distance between our lips smaller, closing the space to millimeters. "May I?"

She seemed to understand what I meant as she leaned forwards as well.

I reached forward to take her chin in my hands as she said, "Of course."

As our lips touched, there weren't any fireworks and time didn't freeze either, we just sat there basking in each other's presence, not caring if Flic's other roommates walked in.

Her tongue quickly flicked inside my mouth. I shuddered as she did that, enjoying the new and unusual sensation.

We pulled apart, hastily, someone was coming down the hall and getting closer to Flic's room. I shuddered as I heard the sound of high heels coming closer.

 _Click._

 _Click._

 _Click._

The clicking slowly started to fade after the person, most likely a teacher, passed the room. Flic and I sat there for a bit in awkward silence. She stared at her hands. "So, are we a couple now?"

I leaned in and pecked her on the lips. "Does that answer your question?"

She laughed in tinkling manner before latching her lips back onto mine.

* * *

 **That was just a quick interlude, so we have our next chapter up as well.**


	34. Interlude IV: Annabeth I

**Ok, so chapter 2/2 for today. But this is another fluffy filler chapter (this is where we hit writer's block for like six months. Yeah: a few of these next chapters will be really short and pretty dead. Sorry.**

* * *

Annabeth Chase POV

I just couldn't wrap my head around why Flic hadn't been claimed yet.

It just didn't make sense. Unless it was a really minor god, but that was doubtful.

There couldn't be three children of minor gods all going to school together. It was a ridiculous idea. How could she suddenly be a demigod? How come we hadn't been attacked again yet?

Nyx couldn't have given up.

She _couldn't_.

Then why had she waited for us all to recover again? We were strong and prepared. It just didn't make any damn sense.

Why?

I was interrupted by Percy falling off of the lunch bench and onto the floor. I glared down at him. "How in Hades did you do that?"

He grinned up at me from the floor. "I don't know. I just did."

"Idiot."

I turned to glare at Leo. "Not helping."

Leo was laughing hysterically with his hair on fire.

In a wooden hall. Not helpful, as I said.

Jason was demonstrating how far he could shoot static bolts, making Piper start slapping him on the arm every five seconds.

Typical.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading these two** _ **extremely**_ **short chapters. We hope you enjoyed the fluff, as it's about to go downhill from here.**

 **Don't forget to review and favourite/follow and stuff, because we got homework today (we have like a three days until the summer holidays) and we're both really tired. Also this, once again, could be the last chapter we manage to post, just so you know.**

 **Bye,**

 **-AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	35. Nico II

**Hi. Again. This really will probably be the last chapter for a while. Sorry.**

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 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Nico POV

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Frick.

I started to hyperventilate.

I could not deal with this, not after the summer. The shadows were closing in on me.

I swallowed and did what I did best. I let them engulf me.

I found myself in the cafeteria of a high school. Standing on a table. In front of Annabeth.

With my foot in her pudding.

Damn.

I smiled at her. "Hi?"

She practically growled at me. "What the Hades are you doing here?"

Annabeth grabbed my neck and wrenched me off the table with a crash. "You can't just appear out of flippin' shadows in the middle of the school cafeteria! People will have questions!"

"Gees, Annabeth, tad violent." I lowered my voice. "No one should be bothered, they're all too busy eating." I pulled myself onto the bench, squeezing into the gap between Percy and her. "Anyway, I have news from Camp. There's large shadows that are kinda consuming Camp."

Percy leaned forward. "Consuming? As in eating?"

I nodded. "Yeah, half the stables are gone. That's kinda why I rushed here."

An alarmed expression briefly flashed across Percy's face. "What about everyone at Camp? Are they OK?"

I grimaced. "Cecil's lost half a leg. Laurel is unconcious in the infirmary but not dead yet. We think the old mummy might have been eaten." I stood up and brushed the crumbs that I'd fallen into off of my trousers. "Anyway, we need to get to Camp. I'll take three, Hazel can take three. Percy, can Mrs O'Leary take two of you?"

Percy nodded. "She can probably take three or four. When do we leave?"

"Now."

o0O0o

Honestly, this school was a maze of corridors. I swear that neither Percy or Annabeth had a clue where they were going.

I could've sworn that we saw the same goddamn potted plant about nine times. Who designed the damn place?

If I saw that same potted plant again, I was going to smash it, even if only to give us a way of finding our way around.

 _Eventually,_ we found where I presumed we were supposed to be going. The room we arrived at was bland from the outside, but splayed with colour on the inside. The four beds all had varying bed spreads, one of which was Hazel's (purple with gold spots).

It was fairly obvious which bed was Annabeth's.

The piles of books and random blueprints probably did it.

There was a bed with varying photos of Piper, Jason and the rest of us pinned up, amongst others (but mainly Piper and Jason), that presumably belonged to… yes, Piper.

There was a bed at the end with an orange duvet and various personal items that I assumed belonged to Ellie. I didn't see the relevance.

"Annabeth?"

"Yes?"

"Please hurry up."

"Well, we can do it from here. We just needed to get out of the way of all of the mortals," Annabeth said, turning on the spot to grab a small rucksack from under her bed and a long, thin package, which she pulled the tissue paper off of to reveal her trusty drakon-bone sword.

"No time for armour," I snapped.

Annabeth snagged her cap from where it was hanging on her lamp and stuffed it into her bag. "Ready."

"Excellent, who am I taking?"

Annabeth bit her lip.

"Fine!" I said. "I'm taking Will, and I guess I'll take Ellie and Flic? Hazel, can you manage three?"

Hazel glanced down nervously. "I-I- think so."

I sighed. "I'll take another then. Leo? You're small."

Leo yelped indignantly, but I ignored him. "Right, so, Hazel. You can take Frank and Piper?"

Hazel nodded. "OK."

"So, Percy, that leaves you with Annabeth, Danny and Peter. Can Mrs O'Leary manage all four of you?"

Percy nodded. "I think so. Is there enough space in here?"

I shrugged. "Go on."

Percy let out a classic New York taxi whistle and stepped back, pulling Flic and Ellie backwards too to avoid being flattened/suffocated by the enormous hellhound that was sure to appear. "Do you know what? Go on ahead of us. We'll catch up soon."

I needed no further warning.

I grabbed Flic and Ellie's joined hands before grabbing Will's with my other hand. Leo grabbed Will's hand.

I nodded briefly, before fading back into the shadows.

* * *

 **You can really tell that we had writer's block. Wow. Especially that first section. I think we took our break of about three months halfway through this chapter and came back again to invent some random new problem for the poor demigods to face.**

 **This is pretty much certain to be the last updater you get until September, and even then the updates will probably start slower, due to a larger pile of homework appearing from all of our lovely new teachers.**

 **So, we're not** _ **that**_ **sorry about that lovely little cliffie that you'll have to wait months to see the next part of…**

 **Sorry about the delay thing. This story will NOT be abandoned, though. (And we might somehow appear on the computer at the same time during the summer, so you might get a couple of totally random updates.)**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	36. Ellie XIII

**Hi, we're back with this incredibly annoying and long fanfiction.**

 **We just finished our first day back at school and let me tell you it was torturous. Almost as torturous as the fact that one of us has Drama tomorrow morning (me - AHermioneH). [Right, and it's not torturous at ALL that the other has TEXTILES (yup, StormSunfire). ]**

 **I think StormSunfire wants to rant now, so I will let her take the stage.**

 **No, no rant. Just me thinking that drama is no more torturous than textiles.**

 **I meant the other thing you wanted to rant about...**

 **Well, yeah, I guess that I'm pretty sad that nobody is giving us any idea as to what they think of the story, and it feels pretty thankless to be editing pages and pages (editing is so boring; how do any of you do it?) and nobody even drops a note to say 'Hi, I've actually read this'. So, yeah. Rant(ish) over.**

* * *

 **Ellie POV**

Camp Half-Blood was in a state of chaos.

A cloud of darkness was coming out of the forest, slowly but surely consuming the Arts and Crafts cabin that Annabeth had pointed out when showing us around the first time we came here. There was a sea of teenagers running around, screaming or holding bronze weapons.

That was just about the only part of the whole scene that didn't surprise me.

But I had to admit, the whole shadows-eating-the-camp thing was pretty creepy. Like, why? What did the strawberry fields do to it?

I felt a pang of sorrow as I saw what appeared to be a fiery orange cabin disappear into the darkness along with the Tyche cabin. That was probably my cabin. Eh. At least it wasn't finished.

Nico charged straight into the darkness. Idiot.

Will followed. Another idiot, but an idiot in love with the first idiot.

Then Leo followed. On fire. Because he is another one of the many idiots I surround myself with.

I figured, ' _why not?_ ' and followed them into the cloud of darkness ahead. Mistake.

Big mistake.

The darkness wasn't just a shadow. Flippin' heck, it was _devouring_ the camp! What had I been thinking, going into it?

I was another one of the idiots.

Almost as quickly as I ran in, I was flung out of the darkness, landing on my back about thirty feet from the cloud. Smoke curled from my arms.

That was mildly worrying.

A flaming ball of Leo and Will landed with a crash nearby.

"Where's Nico?" I asked.

Will shrugged, a look of panic crossing his face. "I don't know? Maybe it just rejects light bringers? Maybe it's because Nico can become shadow, he can remain in the shadow? Blows me. And besides, if he gets himself killed, I will _personally_ storm _all_ the way down to Hades' palace to give him a piece of my mind! Dying is so inconsiderate!"

Leo sniggered next to him at the phrase 'blows me'. Immature. At least he was in one piece, which was probably fortunate. Probably.

I sat up. "What now?"

A black furry truck materialised, narrowly avoiding trampling us. I screamed in shock, surprise and terror. I did not want to die at the jaws of a black dog the size of a truck.

Percy jumped down from the dog's back, along with the others, who looked a little travel sick. "What's the status on camp? Has anyone disappeared into the darkness?"

Will nodded. "We all tried. _We_ were kicked out, but Nico wasn't. We're sort of just hoping he's still alive in there."

Hazel had appeared by now with Frank and Piper. "Nico's gone?"

Percy looked downwards at himself. "Not gone. Just missing."

Hazel's face crumpled with relief.

Percy pulled out his sword from his pocket and fiddled with it. "What do we do now? We can't just wait for Nico to pop out and say 'Yeah, I'm alright', can we? We've gotta do something. Where are all of the campers?"

Hazel shrugged. "Check the Big House?"

Percy nodded. "Alright."

o0O0o

Mr D had vanished. Surprise.

Chiron was holding an emergency meeting around the ping-pong table with the head counsellors. Travis was holding a table tennis bat, flipping it in his hand. Clarisse was banging her fist on the table repeatedly, the other hand holding a bottle of Cheese Whiz. Miranda had her hands splayed nervously on the table. Some form of unidentifiable weed was sprouting from the corners and wrapping around the table legs. Nobody seemed to notice. Everyone was looking absolutely terrified. Except Clarisse, who just looked absolutely furious. Not that that was unusual or anything, though.

Chiron tapped his hand on the table. "Silence. Now," he said, "does anyone have an idea as to what this is?" I assumed the 'this' he was referring to was the darkness.

Percy looked slightly ill. "Yes, actually."

All heads turned in his direction. A couple of people looked surprised. Most just looked tired.

Percy swallowed. "I think it's something to do with the angry primordial who's already tried to kill us, not mentioning names. You know, power and all that. I assume you know who I'm talking about?"

Jason looked vaguely queasy. "Yes. Don't elaborate, please."

Percy smiled grimly. "No problem. I think this might be referring to the last line of that damn prophecy. Anyone agree with me?"

Clarisse mumbled an agreement from her corner of the room. Lou Ellen was frowning in distaste, clearly having the strongest understanding of Nyx's power, as a daughter of Hecate and all that.

Chiron nodded slowly. "So you're saying that this is a deadly threat, which we have noticed but is good to have confirmed. So what are we going to do about it?"

Percy shrugged. "She wants me and Annabeth. We could go out and see what she wants."

Chiron shook his head. "I don't think that's a good idea, Percy."

"I don't think we have a choice, Chiron."

Chiron braced his hands on the arms of his wheelchair. "Well, I was hoping you wouldn't say that."

Annabeth muttered next to Percy, "So did I."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and hopefully reviewing. Um... updates should come pretty regularly, but not as frequently as they used to because of our new massive workload.**

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 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	37. Annabeth II

**Okay then, hi.**

 **So we've still not had any reviews since June 28th. We don't know if you people are actually out there and reading it / enjoying it / whatever, but we're going to post this next chapter anyway. We're now 164 pages through the 224 page doc (that is still rapidly expanding due to our editing format), and want to see this through to the end even if you guys don't.**

 **But anyway. This is a battle scene.**

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 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Annabeth POV

I hate Nyx. Really, really, _really_ hate Nyx.

I hate Nyx more than I hate _Hera_. That's saying something.

As Percy and I stepped from the safety of the steps of the Big House, the wind whipped around us. Darkness swam, before congealing in the air about thirty feet away to reveal my least favourite winged goddess, who smiled at us with her wolfish grin. "Oh, look, I've found you at last."

Percy frowned next to me. "We came to you? You're clearly not good at finding people. Honestly."

Nyx smiled down at us. "Well, maybe not, but I do have a hostage to clear up the situation a bit." Nico materialised out of the darkness, floating limply in the air next to Nyx. "Now, are you going to make this easy by exchanging your lives for his, or are you going to make it _very_ messy?"

I clenched my fist at the thought, while Percy brought his hand to his pocket. We both tensed simultaneously; him, waiting for the signal, me, waiting for the right moment to give the signal. Neither of us particularly wanted to die, but Nico's life was in the balance and I for one was not prepared to sacrifice him.

Nyx sighed, clearly having anticipated our defiance. "Well, I suppose I could kill you without any traps, but that would be so incredibly _boring_ , wouldn't it? I mean, I _could_ just kill the hostage and make you attack me," she mused. "Yes, I wonder if that would be a good idea."

She held up her hand, ready to launch some attack when a golden ball of light flew into her.

Nyx froze and stared down at the hole in her stomach, even as swirling blackness began to knit the wound closed. "What the-"

She was silenced by another ball of light.

"ENOUGH!" she roared, flapping her wings with a furious snarl. Darkness rolled over us in suffocating waves, muting the light from the projectiles that had been fired in our direction..

A ball of light appeared again, followed by a ball of fire. Two yellow figures appeared in the darkness.

I could recognise the outline of Leo (honestly, his hair's a bit of a give away), but not of the other figure. Whoever it was, they looked like they were about to commit a murder. The two of them charged towards us, Leo chucking fireballs every three seconds and the other one weaving ribbons of light around us.

Ribbons of light? Never seen that one before. Cool, though. They must be a new demigod that arrived while we were at school. Huh.

As the other two advanced, Percy and I advanced with them, Percy pulling out Riptide and also the water out of the canoe lake in front of us. I pulled out my sword, hoping that I would get the chance to stab her if needed.

Nyx raised her narrow, arched eyebrows. "You're going to try and fight your way out of this situation, are you?"

Percy grinned in a mildly terrifying fashion. "Of course. What did you expect?"

However much I teased him for not being smart, my boyfriend could certainly catch onto a plan almost before it was formulated. Plus he loved to anger immortals. Maybe I'd reprimand him about that dangerous habit later.

Right. Fight. Stupid ADHD.

I twirled my sword threateningly. "So, Missy Night. Will you fight us? I don't have a gauntlet to literally throw before you, but this _is_ a challenge to a sort of duel. Not that we are medieval knights, but anyway."

Nyx snarled. Literally. If she wasn't so damn terrifying, the situation might have been funny.

"Fools!" she hissed.

I turned to Percy, trying to convey what I wanted to say with my eyes. He beat me to it.

 _Are you sure that this was a good idea? We've made her mad. Was that your plan?_

I shrugged.

Nyx only smiled again, fluttering her terrible wings idly, sending waves of crushing darkness over us in waves. "You know, I would simply _love_ to accept your offer, but I'm going to decline. I much prefer things as they are. Peaceful. Talking. Pathetic mortals grovelling at my feet. It's a wonderful feeling."

She stretched her wings as wide as she could, blocking out the sun and sending us into a nightmare-black shadow for a few seconds, before folding them again, regarding us coldly, revelling in her power over us.

I turned slightly again, to look over at Leo and the other demigod, who had walked a little closer to us. I could now make out the second demigod's face now.

The recognition almost made me drop my sword in shock.

That was _Will Solace_. Will Solace, the _pacifist_ and _healer_.

Attacking Nyx with ribbons of light? Nope.

His face was dark with a fury that I had never seen before on the usually cheerful and gentle son of Apollo.

Nyx took in the anger on his face and only smiled wider. "I can't believe that I captured this one so easily. He has such a reputation, you know? The _Ghost King_. Pah! He couldn't summon a ghost if he tried!"

That was it. Will's face lit up (literally) in rage. A feral scream ripped from his lips as he lunged forwards to attack the goddess of the night, blinding ribbons of flame erupting from his hands and spinning towards Nyx.

I think that was our cue to go into battle. I dived after Will, roaring my battle cry. Nyx yelped in surprise, her hold on Nico loosening. The unconscious demigod slid to the ground limply.

For a few precious seconds, it seemed as though we were winning. Nyx shrank from Will's blazing fury, giving Percy the opportunity to dive at her, slashing with his bright bronze sword. Will's curving beams of light made Riptide look as though it was aflame. She gave a blood-curdling shriek, but was unable to get out of the defensive.

I jumped up behind her, slashing with my ivory blade at her ethereal wings.

Alas, our success wasn't to last.

Nyx rose with a cold howl of fury, snapping her wings out with a vengeance. I fell from her back, landing on the ground and rolling furiously out of the way. A black blade of darkness materialised in her hand, absorbing Will's bright beams of light.

A flick of Nyx's wrist, and a black, oily substance shot up one of the beams. Will instantly collapsed.

A wave of pure, uncontrolled blackness cannoned into Percy, sending him flying backwards and landing heavily among the trees.

Nyx tipped her head back and gave a pure animalistic scream, calling all manner of black creatures to her aid.

She turned back to me, where I was lying on the ground, staring coldly back at her. Her onyx-black eyes glittered with malice.

"You cannot win, you foolish half-blood."

I shook my head determinedly, blonde curls flying. "Yes, we can."

"I am a _goddess_!"

"You know what? I couldn't care less."

I pushed up from the unforgiving ground, forcing myself to my knees under the crushing weight of Nyx's cold fury. It was like holding the sky again, but I was determined. I _could_ do this.

Nyx only smiled, preparing to smite me with her blackness beams.

A flash of gold flew across my field of field, embedding itself in Nyx's side. She shrieked, plucking the familiar leaf-shaped blade from her side and dropping it into the grass.

I smiled slightly. _Perfect timing, Seaweed Brain_.

Nyx redirected the bolt into the trees, from where the offending projectile had come. There was a shocked yelp and a thud, which I took to mean that Percy had whacked his head on a branch in shock.

I didn't want to think about the other possibility. Percy would be fine.

I glanced over to where Nyx had dropped Riptide in the grass. There wasn't even the faintest glimmer of bronze. I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not.

I kept advancing on her, hoping I could back her into the water by the time Percy came to.

Nyx wasn't taking the bait, instead unfurling her enormous wings again, blotting out the sun and sending roiling waves of darkness rolling over the camp.

I kept fighting, hoping, that for the sake of all of our lives, Percy was going to appear soon. Else we would almost definitely all die. Horribly.

My prayers were apparently answered, as Riptide flew from the treeline for a second time. This time, however, Nyx saw it coming and grabbed the blade, slewing it around and hurling back towards Percy. I didn't see him, but there wasn't a scream of pain, so he was probably alive and not skewered by his own sword. Hopefully, that was.

Finally, he emerged, looking dazed and for all the world like he needed nothing more than a lie down. But he was alive. I noticed a shallow cut along his left arm, presumably from a low-flying Riptide that had just headed in his direction, but he otherwise looked as though he was just about in one piece.

Nyx turned to look at him, a sadistic smile curling at the edges of her lips. "You really are a fighter. I am _truly surprised_ that Gaia did not die quicker with you around."

Percy almost snarled. "I can actually detect sarcasm, you know?"

She really got him riled up. His eyes darkened dangerously, but he didn't strike. Yet.

Leo and I kept backing Nyx towards the lake until she hit it.

She shrieked as she hit the edge and the water swept up around her, wrapping like a lasso around her legs. She screamed a little louder, as if trying to burst our eardrums with the sound.

The clear ropes around her legs suddenly filled with swirling blackness, as if someone had poured squid ink into the water. Percy crumpled to the ground, black spreading through his veins from his hands upwards.

I vaguely remember hearing a scream and I'm not sure if it was from my mouth or not.

Nyx rose, water dripping from her creepy black wings. Her huge black sword reappeared in her hands, as she strode back up the beach towards her attacker (Percy), who was now lying helpless on the ground. She grabbed him with a massive hand, grasping him tightly.

"Look! Look at what your saviour has become!"

There was a slight rustling from the undergrowth. I tore my gaze from Percy and Nyx to gape in horror at the score of bat-winged hags that spread out to form a loose circle around us. _Arai_.

They made no move to attack. "Spread out!" I screamed, "Do not go near them!"

Not that anyone was conscious or anything. Except Leo.

Leo ran outwards, heading towards the lake while Nyx was distracted by Percy, who apparently had almost regained consciousness. Until Nyx walloped him upside the head with her sword, that is.

It was up to me. "Hey!" I shouted towards the arai, "Remember me? Help me kill her and you will get all the curses you could ever want!"

Oh gods, that was a stupid plan.

The collective voice of the arai hissed with dry laughter, like rustling leaves. "Nyx is our mistress, you fool! And she already has one of the wanted demigods. Why would we need the other as well, when curses can be inflicted on him?"

I cussed myself out in Ancient Greek in my head for not realising that one.

"If you don't need me, then why are you still here then? Why not just go back to Tartarus?"

The _arai_ laughed again.

"That's not actually a bad idea, Annabeth Chase. Maybe we should just go back."

They turned to Nyx, who smiled slightly, before vanishing in a puff of black smoke, like a magician's trick. The arai laughed again, a cold, harsh sound, before they too vanished.

I realised my mistake three seconds later.

Nyx had Percy.

* * *

 **Woah that was a really long chapter compared to recently! I think that was the end of our six month writer's block, so ayyy.**

 **The story is practically all action from now on (until part 4). That is probably not a good thing, but hey. Part 4 is basically fluff that we threw in to stop our existential crises about finishing the fic, and gives it a kind of palindromic ending (drop a review if you have any ideas as to what that might entail).**

 **Right, so we haven't really been working on the one-shots recently, but if you guys would like to send in any suggestions, then please do.**

 **And the review box just down to your right is feeling unloved.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	38. Percy II

**Look who's alive! Hi; this is a torture chapter (don't even ask; we have no clue how we ended up like this [cue terrible Nickelback singing]).**

 **So, yeah, another chapter. Some of the sentence flow is a bit weird in this one; we're sorry about tha and weren't sure how to rectify it.**

 **Review Replies (yay, thank you!): howlingbean999: Thank you so much! It's a real boost to see that people are really reading and enjoying it, and we're glad that you liked the chapter. And yeah, it was a bit of a dumb reaction from Annabeth, but be nice to her. Her boyfriend has just been stolen.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Percy POV

I'm vaguely aware of there being some shadow travel between when I was grabbed by Nyx and when I woke up chained in a dark, enclosed space. Dim red light filtered down to me.

My first thought: _owowowowowowowowowow._

My second? _No no no no no not her, not here why no._

As you can tell I found myself in the evilest of places in the world. A place I vaguely identified as the Gym Closet of Yancy Academy.

I did not have good memories of there.

But hey.

If Nyx thought that she could torture me in a gym closet of a busy school, she had another thing coming.

Oh, wait. She didn't.

It wasn't like I _hadn't_ been beaten up in this closet.

I smiled tightly; I knew this closet better than she did. Hopefully the janitor hadn't moved the Field Hockey sticks. Or removed the pipes from the walls.

I doubted that somehow.

The lady of darkness herself entered the closet, hands wringing each other. "Well, the young hero! How are you feeling now? I wondered if you might recognise this place."

I snorted. "Yeah, yeah. And there was me thinking that we were going all the way to hell, but here we are. The gym closet."

Nyx smiled. "Well, your friends won't look for you here, will they? They'll kill themselves jumping into Tartarus to find you, even though you aren't even there." She laughed.

I extended my thoughts slowly, taking control of the water flowing only a few centimetres behind me in the wall.

"A smart plan," I began.

Nyx's smile grew.

"But it won't work."

Water shattered the wall next to me, wrapping around the field hockey sticks and lifting them straight up, before repeatedly smacking the primordial goddess of darkness upside the head.

I almost felt sorry for her. It was going to give her a goddess-grade headache.

She howled, before seizing my arm with vicious fingernails and vanishing again.

My last thought as I was sucked into the void? _Well, that backfired._

o0O0o

The next time I woke, I knew immediately that I was most definitely _not_ in the Yancy Academy gym closet.

The manacles on the cavern wall probably gave it away.

And the fact that every breath was like inhaling razors.

And a group of _arai_ lined the walls, waiting for permission to attack me.

But apart from that, yeah, life was great.

Naturally, Nyx took that moment to stroll in dramatically. "Perseus Jackson! It is such a pleasure to have you here in my home again. And this time you won't just be visiting."

I raised an eyebrow, before defaulting to sarcasm. Works every time. "Won't just be visiting? Does that mean that I'm staying? I have to say, if this is the sort of conditions that you live in, I don't blame you for wanting to take over the world."

Nyx's face twisted into a snarl. "No, you fool! You're not visiting because you're never going to leave!"

"Gee, I hadn't realised that you like me that much."

"You are not here because I like your foolish personality! You are here because you humiliated me and escaped this realm! You will not escape again, you puny half-blood!"

I hummed in agreement. "You do realised that the last person to call me that is down here somewhere. Died, of course."

Nyx's lip curled. "Did they now?"

I grinned, knowing fully well that I was rubbing her the wrong way. "Of course. What do you take me for; an amateur?"

Her eyes flashed with a deadly light. A blade appeared in her hand. She looked mad enough to use it.

I did not want to be involved in a game of Throw-The-Knife-At-Percy.

Maybe driving her up the wall had been a bad idea.

Naturally, I realised this _after_ making the mistake.

The knife flew at the speed of light, brushing my leg as it hit me rocky wall beside me.

"Schist. You might wanna watch where you thr-"

Another knife pinned my shirt to the wall.

"That's actually a pretty good aim, you know. I didn't know that immortal goddesses could be so good at that sort of thing without cheating. I- OW!"

The third knife actually hit me. Trust my dodgy brain-to-mouth filter to make a goddess throw a knife at me at the speed of sound. It lodged itself in my thigh (hopefully missing any arteries. I didn't actually want to die.). I left it stuck there, hoping that it would slow the blood flow out of my body onto the floor. Not to mention that my hands were manacled to the wall.

Strange. I hadn't noticed that before.

I didn't say anything, waiting for Nyx to make the next move.

One of her tendrils of darkness reached out towards me and grasped my injured leg, wrenching it outwards from the manacle.

"You see, I enjoy torturing people into agony."

I let out a gasp as my leg was wrenched even further from its socket. "Geez. You _really_ hate me."

The darkness curled into letters that spelt out 'Yes I Do', then it disbanded and gathered around me, tugging on each of my limbs. I winced again as my left arm was wrenched in and out of its socket.

"Look, can't we just talk? I would appreciate my limbs actually being attached to my body, you know? I for one would gladly help you with the entire taking over camp thing, if you would just let me go."

That made the darkness dissipate, and Nyx herself freeze. "What did you just say?" Her voice cut through the darkness like daggers.

"I said I would help with the entire taking over camp thing, if you let me and my friends go."

Nyx paused for a moment, before throwing back her head and _laughing_. " _You_? _You_ would betray your camp and all of your precious friends? I think not! I think that _you_ are _lying,_ Perseus Jackson. _Lying_."

Well, goodbye to that little plan. Unless... "No! I mean it, like half of the new campers are so annoying and don't even care about what we did in the wars. Please, I need to get out of here, and if it means betraying them," - my voice broke at that bit; I really should have gone into acting - "I'll do it as long as you let my original friends go."

Nyx glared at me coldly. "An interesting deal. But I still think that you're lying. I think that you're lying to save your own cowardly hide. Is that right, Perseus?"

Darkness coalesced into a black dagger that plunged in just under my collarbone. I howled, unable to keep the sound inside.

Nyx only laughed again. "You think I am not powerful enough to wreak havoc on this world, but I am." She cackled as another black dagger plunged into my body. "Your body shall show your puny friends just how strong I am to have wrecked the most powerful demigod on this earth."

She was going into an evil villain monologue. Great. Now she could put me to sleep while she stabbed me.

o0O0o

I didn't recall falling unconscious, but waking up was not fun.

I slowly lifted my head from where it had fallen onto my chest, blinking in the dim, red light.

I rolled my shoulders in an attempt to release the tension, but only succeeded in making myself feel worse, as it made my wrists chafe more painfully against the manacles.

I really hated Hell. Have I mentioned that?

I grimaced as I took another gasp of hell air, breathing in the little shards of glass that drifted around like motes of dust. I froze as I heard footsteps coming towards me. Probably Nyx, here to torture me to unconsciousness again. "Percy?"

I perked up at the voice, realising who it was. "Bob?" I winced, partly from the effort of speaking and partly from hearing my voice, which had cracked and gone all gravelly and quiet.

"Percy! What are you doing here?" Bob appeared around the corner of the dimly cavern, broom in hand, wild Einstein hair sticking up all over the place.

"Bob! You're alive?" I rasped, lifting my head a little further to see him more clearly.

"Yes, Bob is fine," the Titan rumbled.

I coughed. "Listen, Bob, Nyx is keeping me prisoner here until I'm dead. Do you think you can do me a favour and, you know, free me before I die?" I jerked my head towards the chains holding me in place.

Bob frowned slightly. "Nyx will not keep you until you die. She wants to send you back as a message."

I glanced up. "Yes, as a _dead_ message."

Bob's frown deepened. "Maybe, but I will assist you in escaping. Though, once again, we will have to travel to the Doors to escape. Do you think that you can do that?"

I blinked. "Didn't the Doors leave?"

"The Doors are always there. It is just that there is no guarantee as to where you will get out."

I rattled the chains. "I'm in."

Bob was just taking a step forwards to free me when a sickly sweet voice echoed down into the cavern. The dim torches on the walls flickered. Bob spun around like a scalded cat, before dashing towards the corner with a muttered 'Bob is sorry!' and vanishing.

Then Nyx rounded the corner.

Great. I love being beaten to death.

Not.

* * *

 **Ouch. I didn't remember being that horrible to Percy when we wrote this.**

 **Thanks for reading guys! Don't forget to drop us a review if you like it. We're drowning in homework right now and wouldn't mind a few friendly words.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	39. Danny XII

**Hi everyone! (Again). So, we're doing two chapters today because these are both pretty short. No, Percy is not in either. Sorry.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Howlingbean999 - It's brilliant to hear that you're so enthusiastic about this convoluted and weird story. Yeah, sorry that it was OOC with Annabeth. We were just being unnecessarily dramatic with that ending, I think. Anyway, here are two more chapters that are even more OOC. Enjoy!**

 **Quihi - Thank you for reappearing and reviewing again! We've missed having reviews from you. We're shocked to hear that you sympathised with one of our many cardboard OCs, and sorry that you were sad that we killed her for drama. Yeah, we kinda felt bad for Percy, but plot. Plot requires us to semi-murder characters. And yeah, that darkness thing was weird. Then again, Nyx is weird (and angry). So here: two more chapters.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Danny POV

I watched as Annabeth collapsed onto her knees once the evil hag ladies were gone.

Her sword hit the ground with a thud beside her, completely forgotten. She lowered her forehead to the ground, clutching the grass so tightly that she tore up huge clods of earth and her nails broke.

She didn't seem to notice. Or care.

The rest of us stood in some sort of circle formation around her, watching as our leader just folded in on herself like a house of cards. _I should be comforting her, shouldn't I?_

I walked over to her, hand out to pat her shoulder as she sobbed into the earth below her.

She made no move to acknowledge that I was there.

"Annabeth? It's going to be alright. We'll find him. Get him back. It'll all be fine, yeah?"

She tilted her face up to me and said flatly, without any emotion, "No it won't. It won't be fine."

"Yes it will. Percy's a tough guy. He'll be alright. And so will you. Right?" I tried to speak in a calming way, but, truth be told, I had no idea what to do.

Annabeth's voice cracked. "No it won't! I failed him, and now Nyx has him! I've failed everybody and look what's happened!"

I blinked at her outburst. "No, Annabeth. You haven't failed. Without you, we'd all be _dead_. We're okay."

I wasn't expecting what she did next.

It hit me like a slap to the face.

Literally.

" _We're_ okay? Perhaps. But Percy isn't."

She stood up, angrily clawing the dirt from her jeans, and stalked off towards her cabin.

I rubbed my throbbing cheek and remarked to nobody in particular, "Well, that went well."

Will shifted to my side, nodding in agreement. "Chill out, dude. She won't listen to anyone in that kind of state. I'll send Malcolm in to make sure she doesn't hurt herself in her rage."

He limped off to find Annabeth's aforementioned brother, who, knowing Annabeth, was probably about to be used for target practice.

I felt pretty sorry for him. _I_ didn't really want Annabeth throwing a collection of knives and hardback architecture textbooks at me.

Then again, I felt sorry for Annabeth, too. It would take an idiot not to see that losing Percy had affected her in a huge way. I just hoped that she'd be able to gather herself enough to unleash her rage on Nyx when the time came. Preferably not on us.

There was a thundering of feet and someone came to a skidding halt beside us. "What just happened?" panted Peter, breathless from his sprint.

I will admit that I was surprised to see him. "Percy's been kidnapped," I said, motioning to the wreckage.

Peter frowned. "Do you have magic kids? Like children of Trivia's Greek aspect?"

Leo frowned back. "Like the Hecate cabin? They're scary."

Peter nodded. "Where are they?"

Leo paled slightly. "No, no, no! Didn't you hear me? They're _scary_. Lou Ellen has a nasty habit of stealing your nose. Or turning you into a pig for a while."

Peter sighed. "Just get us to them. Then you can run off."

I stood up and turned to him. "Why?"

Peter smiled cryptically. "You'll know in a minute."

Leo led us towards the Hecate cabin with the attitude of a man being led to the gallows.

o0O0o

True to Peter's word, Leo was allowed to sprint when we were a safe distance away from the Hecate cabin.

Peter strode up to the door and rapped on it loudly. "Hello?"

A girl opened the door. Her piercing eyes landed on me, as a strand of dark hair fell in front of her (slightly sunken) face. The green orbs of death then turned to Peter. "Yes?"

Peter looked grim. "Can you dowse for lost people?"

Lou Ellen paled at the idea. "Yes, we can. Well, I've seen people do it before, but yes. Who are you looking for?"

I swallowed, throat dry. "Percy Jackson."

She showed her shock at the name in only a tiny way - a slight widening of her eyes, minute scrunching of the eyebrows. "You'd better come in."

* * *

 **Okay, end of chapter! Next one is also up, so please read that one too.**


	40. Peter I

**Hi, this is the second chapter that we've posted today, so if you haven't already, we'd recommend that you go back a page and read the first new chapter.**

 **CHAPTER 2/2 FOR TODAY!**

* * *

Peter Bradley POV

The Hecate cabin was creepy. It was dark and just generally made me feel wary and nervous. I don't know why. It just did.

Lou Ellen strode over to a huge, dark wood chest with Victorian style clawed feet and huge tarnished iron clasps. She threw it open and took out an armful of modern OS maps.

I blinked.

She then went over to a massive and equally Victorian table, sweeping the mess off it with one arm and carelessly letting it fall to the ground. She unfolded a massive world map first, holding down the corners with paperweights that pulsed with swirling mist and light. "Do you guys have anything that belongs to Percy?"

I sighed. "What sort of thing?"

Lou waved her arms about a bit. "Something small, I guess. Or I could do it with someone who's very close to him."

 _Annabeth_.

Danny sent a pointed look in my direction, as if to say _I was the one that comforted her earlier, it's your turn._ I closed my eyes for a second. _Why me? She'll rip my head off_.

"I'll get her." I turned and ran from the cabin to find Annabeth before anyone could object.

Next thing I knew, I was banging on the grey door to the Athena cabin. The carved owl above the door frowned down at me disapprovingly.

Malcolm opened the door, looking weary. "She doesn't want to come out." He pushed the door shut. On my foot. It couldn't close. I felt very proud of myself. _Ha ha, not that smart now, huh?_

Malcolm opened the door again. "She really doesn't want to come out."

"Lou Ellen needs her if she's going to dowse for Percy."

Malcolm sighed. "Wait here." He closed the door again, and this time I let him.

There was a muffled conversation before Annabeth opened the door. She looked absolutely awful. Her stormy grey eyes were distant and bloodshot. "Well, I'm here."

"Come on, then. Let's find him, yeah?"

Those turbulent eyes focused on me. "I hope so." She followed me back towards the Hecate cabin.

o0O0o

Lou had found a small Celestial Bronze nail somewhere, and was twirling it idly in her fingers when we arrived. "Annabeth! Great."

She dropped the nail on the table and clapped her hands together. "Now, I guess we'll have to maintain physical contact during this, so-"

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay." She rolled up her sleeve and presented her arm to Lou, who took it in one hand, picking up the nail in the other.

She then proceeded with some creepy magic-y chanting, before flipping the nail up into the air.

It landed, quivering, over New York. It balanced perfectly on it's point, but didn't pierce the paper.

Lou opened her eyes and grinned. "Shall we get a more detailed map?" Annabeth nodded silently as the daughter of Hecate folded the world map neatly and produced another map, this one of the New York area.

They repeated the spell, and Lou flicked the nail again. It spun, then shot towards a spot on the map.

We crowded around. I was the first to voice my confusion. "Yancy Academy? A _school_?"

Lou's eyebrows furrowed. "That's right."

The nail fell over suddenly, like a puppet with strings cut. Lou paled.

"What does that mean?" Annabeth demanded, the fire reignited in her determined eyes.

Lou shook her head, scrabbling for the world map again.

"What does it mean?" Annabeth demanded again, hands braced on the edge of the table.

"They moved. He's not in New York anymore."

The temperature seemed to drop by about ten degrees.

Lou tried again with the world map, seeing where they were.

The nail fell to the table, not pulled by the spell at all.

Lou tried again.

And again.

A terrible silence fell. The barriers behind Annabeth's eyes were back up. She voiced what we were all thinking. "He's not on Earth anymore, is he?"

Lou shook her head determinedly. "Nyx could have just blocked the spell."

Annabeth shook her head. "You dowsed for him last year, when the spell was blocked. This was different. There just wasn't any signal for the spell to pick up, because he isn't on the Earth. That's right, isn't it?"

Our silence was enough of an answer.

She banged her hand on the table. "NO! We are not just accepting this! We can't! Percy is _relying_ on us to find him! We _will not_ just give up on him! I'll jump back into Tartarus if I have to! There must be _something_ we can do?" Her face was a twisted mask of cold fury, and her blazing eyes raked over us. "We will _not_ give up!"

None of us spoke, we were all way too terrified of invoking her wrath.

Lou gulped. "Annabeth, we need to think rationally. We-"

Annabeth spun to her and fixed her with a glare so pointed it could probably cut diamond. "Yes?"

Lou looked petrified. "We need to think rationally-"

"You've said that already! What's your _point_?" Annabeth snapped.

Lou flinched. "If we don't know where to find him, then how can we start searching? We can't search the whole world to find him!"

"I don't care!" Annabeth spat, uncharacteristically fiery and illogical. "If I have to, I'll comb _all_ of the worlds to get him back! Understand?"

My throat was drier than Death Valley. "Annabeth, this is what Nyx wants. She might-" the words died. My tongue was so dry it felt like it was being microwaved.

Annabeth now fixed me with that terrible gaze. "She might _what_ , Peter?"

I swallowed. "She might kill Percy to get a reaction from you."

One look at the inferno burning in her eyes told me that she had already realised this, but had simply decided to ignore it. "And your point is? _That_ is the reason that we have to get to him before she can hurt him."

There was going to be no reasoning with Annabeth when she was like this. That blazing rage partnered with her wicked intelligence made a deadly pairing. Any objections to her plans would be shot down by counterarguments that would be so smart we wouldn't be able to fight back.

I almost hoped that Nyx hadn't hurt Percy. For her sake. Annabeth in a rage was a terrifying thing. And if she unleashed that rage…

Well, I wouldn't want to be caught in the crossfire of _that_ particular fight.

* * *

 **Okay, so things are continuing to heat up in this weird and random world. Now, we'd say that we're sorry for not giving you a chapter with Percy in, but we're really not so you'll have to wait on that one until we both surface from drowning in homework.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	41. Percy III

**Hello! We are alive! Here is a Percy chapter.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Quihi - We guess it is pretty easy to sympathise with Renee, but because we'd sort of set her up to be a mean character, we didn't even think about possibly feeling sorry for her. We also thought that the dowsing was pretty cool.**

* * *

Percy POV

I swam slowly back to consciousness, breath rasping in the silence. I wasn't sure what had woken me up; maybe the crunch of someone stepping through the darkness of Tartarus; maybe I'd just had enough sleep for once.

Then I felt it. 'It' being a tugging in my gut, like when I'm controlling water.

My immediate reaction was 'Holy Hades, that's weird'.

My second reaction was 'Maybe they're trying to find me... Hopefully'.

I frowned as the tugging became sharper, before stopping completely. Wonderful.

The silence thickened around me, wrapping around me like the acrid crimson air. Well, I was by myself in here. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not. I froze as I heard a growl, which was then followed in quick succession by a meow.

"Bob?" I was answered by Small Bob's claws digging into my already scarred ankle. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much."

"Do not thank Bob yet," rumbled the familiar voice of Bob from above me. "You are not safe yet."

I shook my head. "I'm thanking you for coming back for me, when I just left you to die last time."

Bob tugged slightly at the chains securing me to the wall. "You do not need to thank me for that. You are my friend. I help my friends." I felt a twinge at that, as images of Beckendorf and Silena and Bianca and-

I cut myself off, blaming it on the atmosphere of Tartarus. Bob was here. I could be positive.

Right?

Bob took one of the chains in one hand and gave it another tug. It didn't so much as give slightly.

Small Bob decided that the best idea would be to leap up and scrabble at the links.

Nothing.

Bob then took a small part of the length between his huge hands and pulled as hard as he could. With a wrenching screech of metal, the links twisted and buckled, before snapping entirely. Bob repeated the process on the other chain, before grabbing me and lifting me up, not even giving me a chance to try and get to my feet.

Not that I would have been able to do that, anyway.

Bob's healing touch did worryingly little, only giving me some temporary respite from the burning air. The wounds that Nyx had given me stayed exactly as they were.

"Bob cannot heal this. Night's magic stops me."

Great. "That's okay, Bob. I'll be alright if we can get out."

Bob nodded in an unsure fashion. "We need to hurry. Tartarus kills demigods."

He turned and carried me from the cave, Small Bob at his heels. He hurried quickly along the reddish roads, winding his way from Nyx's stronghold, wherever it was.

o0O0o

Somewhere along the way, I must have lost consciousness again, because I woke to a pounding headache and Small Bob anxiously licking my face.

Bob was sitting on a small stone a short way away, looking tired.

"How far have we come?"

"Not far enough," Bob replied cryptically. "But you were not well. You needed rest."

"You were carrying me! I wasn't doing anything!"

Bob shrugged. "You needed rest," he insisted.

I didn't reply, wracked as I was by a sudden wave of pain and exhaustion. Small Bob whimpered slightly.

Bob's head shot up. "We need to keep going," he said, scooping me up again and starting off, even though I had slipped back into unconsciousness.

* * *

 **Chapter 1/2**


	42. Peter II

**Chapter 2/2 today: please read the previous one if you haven't already.**

* * *

Peter POV

Almost a week had passed, and yet we had still got nowhere.

Percy was still unfound.

Annabeth was still distraught and furious. She hadn't left her cabin since the dowsing fiasco, not even for meals. Malcolm was acting as her personal helper, taking and delivering messages for her and taking her food.

Try as we might, we still couldn't find any trace of him. It was as if he had simply vanished from the face of the Earth. Which was probably what had happened, knowing the luck of any demigod.

I gave extra offerings to Hecate with every meal, in the hope that she'd be able to help. So far, no luck. So I still wasn't that hopeful when I was summoned back to the Hecate cabin. But a small spark of hope ignited in me when I saw what Lou Ellen had.

It was a map.

Of _all_ of the worlds.

The whole thing was divided into depth layers, with Olympus at the top, then the world, then Hades' realm, then Tartarus at the bottom.

There was even a slim black section at the very bottom for Chaos.

Maybe we would be able to find Percy, after all.

Lou took the small pebble that had been found in Percy's cabin (it was the right size…), then tried her dowsing spell. It landed squarely in the tiny, exquisite rendering of what looked like a cave. Otherwise know as right bang splat in the middle of Tartarus.

Lou paled. "Well, we found him."

I looked down at the map. Just above the cave image was that of a little black temple. "That's really bad, isn't it?"

Lou nodded. "Those caves are ruled by Nyx. That's the House of Night just above them. We've found where he is, but there is absolutely no way that we could get down there to help."

I gulped. "Do we tell Annabeth?"

"I don't know."

"I'll tell Mal. If he thinks that she should know, he'll tell her. Right?" I had a feeling that my hand actions were getting larger and more dramatic (It comes from having a drama queen for a twin brother).

Lou nodded uncertainly. "Right."

I gazed down at the tiny, speckled pebble, sat in the middle of the most hostile environment that any demigod could possibly face. "Do you think that he's okay?"

Lou glanced at me suddenly, lips pursing as she considered it. "No."

Her response startled me a little. "Why not?"

"Think about it, Peter! Nyx is quite probably torturing him _right now._ Why else would she have taken him? No, don't look at me like that! You need to think about this logically. Why else? Percy is a bargaining chip for Nyx. But she's not going to have given him his own five-room suite, is she?"

"If she wants him as a bargaining chip, then she'll want to keep him in one piece, won't she?"

Lou snorted. "Did you see her? She's a _sadist_ , Peter. She's probably enjoying _someone's_ pain now, even if it isn't Percy's."

I didn't say anything; didn't want to consider what Lou had said.

Percy would be fine. He _had_ to be fine. Losing him had not only affected Annabeth: he was seen as an idol, especially to the younger, newer campers. Nyx knew what she was doing when she took him.

Percy wasn't just the most powerful demigod alive. He was the symbol of hope for all of us.

He would be fine.

Right?

* * *

 **Well, that's all for today. StormSunfire is regretting life right now and drowning under an ever-growing mountain of homework, but these chapters are up for you guys. You're welcome.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	43. Percy IV

**Hello again, everyone. We have clawed our way from under a crushing mountain of homework to post another two chapters!**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Howlingbean999 - She really wouldn't listen if someone said that it was unhealthy, would she? I also think that Percy is probably tired of falling unconscious, but hey, it's a good plot device.**

 **Quihi - She probably didn't, but we just wanted to pretend that she was so that we could inflict a few things on her (initials, name and death... you know, that sort of thing)**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Percy POV

I lost track of time as Bob hurried through the crimson wastelands.

I drifted in and out of consciousness constantly, and stayed awake for shorter periods each time.

That was probably bad. Not that I was ever really awake enough to contemplate whether it was bad or not anyway.

That was probably worse.

Bob stopped suddenly. He turned his head from left to right, scanning the (as far as I could tell) empty plains with what was quite possibly fear.

I blinked and tried to shake myself out of my stupor.

It didn't really work.

Bob let out a long and piercing taxi whistle. My eardrums throbbed with the sound. I hazily remember Damasen appearing at once, the sharps ears of his drakon (wait, do drakons even have ears?) picking up the sound.

They spoke in tones too low for me to discern what they were saying. Bob quickly slung me over his shoulder again (I hadn't even realised that he had put me down), before setting off again, flanked by Small Bob and Damasen. I vaguely registered as we approached the Doors of Death, the very essence of the pit seeming to pull me downwards.

I spiralled out of the conscious world for a while then.

I came to, considerably closer to the Doors than before.

And registered the sheer number of monsters that were gathered around them.

It finally computed in my sluggish brain that I really was going to die down in Tartarus. No matter how strong of heart my two friends were. They were only two against thousands.

I silently apologised to Annabeth.

Apologised for not being stronger.

Apologised for letting myself be taken again.

Apologised for just not being there when she needed me the most.

Even if none of it was my fault, I apologised for it, praying that my message could reach her over the thousands of miles that separated us.

That she might understand what I wanted to say, even as words began to fail my clouded brain.

 _I'm so sorry_.

Then a third of the monsters turned on their fellows.

Bob and Damasen charged into the fray.

My head throbbed at the clamour, ears ringing with every shriek and curse.

My vision began to blur.

The world dimmed.

I slipped away.

Yet again.

* * *

 **And there was Percy falling unconscious again (wow, we overused that plot device)**. **We hope you enjoyed those chapters (Review if you did or didn't. Improve our writing style). See you whenever we get enough of a break to edit again.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	44. Danny XIII

**Hi! Sorry that the last chapter was so short - StormSunfire was in charge of posting and it was too confusing for such a simple mind. Two was just too many to manage at once.**

 **Anyway, here is another, even shorter chapter. Enjoy.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Walley (Guest) - Honestly, we are so touched that you spent that long writing to us. Thanks for all of the compliments you managed to intersperse that review with. Now onto actual business. Yeah, there are a lot of plotholes that we have tried to fix during editing, but just haven't managed to correct. Maybe Percy could have gone to the Phlegethon, but the issue we thought of was that it was in the opposite direction of Nyx's palace, which is why he didn't (I hope that clears that up). We love that you're encouraging us to write more, but we're currently DROWNING in homework, so you might want to put notifications on us if you want to see most of the other stuff, as we post so irregularly (that sounds like a shameless self-ad, but yeah we might not post for a while after we finish this this, because of writing and school and homework and stuff). We hope that you keep on reading!**

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Danny POV

Lou Ellen, for some crazy reason decided that, yes, it would be an _excellent_ idea to tell Annabeth where Percy was. Well done, Lou.

Annabeth was now hell-bent (haha) on finding her boyfriend before he was killed by Nyx. She had known for about three hours, but had not yet stopped her ceaseless pacing, thinking, exclaiming and dismissal of ideas.

It was rather frightening.

"We have to go and get him."

Piper stepped forward and put a hand on Annabeth's shoulder. "You can't; it will only get you, and more people, killed."

Annabeth shrugged off Piper's hand. "I don't care. I'm not going to sit here and do nothing about it."

Piper grabbed her arm, stopping her from resuming her pacing. "Then don't do nothing. Find something that might be beneficial for when he gets back. _When_ , Annabeth. Nyx will send him back."

Annabeth shook her head. "That's illogical. Unless she wants to…" Her voice tailed away.

Piper looked confused. "Unless she wants to…?"

"Make an example of him."

The whole room gulped.

Annabeth dashed out, headed straight for the infirmary, no doubt to make sure that Will was completely prepared to save someone's life at a moment's notice. Piper and I rose to follow her; Piper clearly to look after her friend; me, feeling as if I should be some sort of replacement for Percy.

We ran quickly behind Annabeth, yelling to try and persuade her to stop whatever crazy plan was formulating in her mind.

"Annabeth! ANNABETH!"

Annabeth, STOP!" Piper yelled, adding a decent dollop of charmspeak to her speech.

Annabeth slowed, enough for us to catch up.

Piper placed her hand on Annabeth's shoulder again. "Listen to me, whatever you're planning on doing, it probably won't work. Don't entertain the possibility that you'll succeed, Annabeth."

Annabeth turned. "Why would I try if I don't think that I can succeed?"

"Whatever you're thinking…"

"Why are you assuming that I'm going to go and do something and quite possibly get myself killed in the process?" She turned to face me, eyes boring into my skull.

"Because that's what Percy would do."

She froze. "So?"

"I'm not suggesting anything," I began, attempting to placate her, "but if you think that doing what Percy would do in the situation would help, it probably won't. I've known Percy as a friend for four years now, and I'm telling you that if you get yourself hurt in some crazy attempt to try and save him, he would never forgive himself. He won't expect you to come for him if it means putting yourself in danger. And he won't think that you've abandoned him if you don't. Just because it's not obvious that you're trying to find him doesn't mean that you're not, and he knows that. He _knows_ you. Knows that you'll be doing everything in your power to rescue him. He doesn't need you to prove it."

Her glare dimmed by about twenty megawatts. The rage slumped from her shoulders.

"Then what can I do? Nothing that I'm doing is making any _difference!_ " She practically screamed the last part, frustration dripping from her hoarse voice.

Piper grabbed her friend's shoulders and stared her down. "Annabeth. If anger is what's keeping you going, then by all means stay angry." Anger started to form in my gut. "But we _are_ trying. And we can't do any more at the moment. And I _know_ that's what frustrating you, but we need to be a little bit more patient. We can't get to him right now."

The flickering embers in Annabeth's eyes brightened slightly and my stomach settled again.

"Fine." She turned on her heel and headed straight for the Hecate cabin.

"Annabeth?" I called after her.

"I'm going to get Lou to dowse for him again. It's better than nothing, isn't it?" Sarcasm practically dripped from her words.

But I forced myself to remain calm, reminding myself that she was in a dark place mentally and it wasn't her fault if she took out her frustration on the people around her.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! We will try to post again soon, but there is a looming school trip that we're going on that means that we won't be able to post during that week - we will try and post a little bit more next week to compensate.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	45. Percy V

**Hi! We bring two chapters today as a peace offering for the fact that there won't be an update for at least a week, due to our impending school trip of doom.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**

* * *

Percy POV

As I flickered in and out of consciousness, I somehow registered that Bob and Damasen were cutting a swathe through the monster ranks. Destination: The Doors.

Bob reached the black and silver elevator without too much difficulty. Damasen's drakon stayed behind, keeping the other monsters away from the telkhine that was stood by the button.

Bob gave the seal-dude a nod, and the Doors slid open.

In we went.

The Doors closed.

We began to go up.

Small Bob mewled in terror and hid in Bob's coveralls.

I tried to breathe a sigh of relief. It didn't work. I coughed, choking up little grains of red sand from within my throat. The giant and Titan both bent down to examine me. Bob's eyebrows furrowed in worry. "I fear that if he does not have mortal food soon, he may die."

Damasen nodded, picking up the grains of sand from where they were covering my chest. "It does not look good; this is a mixture of both blood and the glass of Tartarus. He will also need ambrosia quickly."

I moved my head as far as I could (not far), to attempt to lock eyes with Bob. "Doors..." I rasped, struggling with the issue of barely speaking for the past few days, "Moved... Be anywhere..." I coughed again after finishing that dodgy sentence.

Luckily, Bob seemed to understand. He closed his eyes, before beginning to mutter in Ancient Greek. Hopefully to try and get the Doors to guide us as close to Camp Half-Blood as possible.

The darkness closed in on me as we continued to rise through the levels, towards the world again.


	46. Piper I

**Right, Chapter 2/2. This is a lot longer than most of our recent chapters, so we're actually quite glad that this is the one you're getting before our very small hiatus.**

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Piper POV

For some reason, Chiron decided that, yes, even in the middle of a war, we can play capture the flag in the woods. Excellent idea from the Activities Director there.

Annabeth, unsurprisingly, said that she was _not_ playing. Something had reignited a shred of hope in her heart after the dowsing with Lou earlier, and she was currently in her cabin, probably designing a temple to take her mind off the fact that her boyfriend was missing and quite possibly dying. Chiron had tried to persuade her to join in, but it was to no avail.

So it was Hephaestus, Athena, Aphrodite and Apollo, against everyone else; which was actually pretty fair. Well, we also had Danny, but he didn't really have a cabin or anyone else to fight with. And he had no experience.

But anyway, Malcolm had taken charge, having been at camp for almost as long as Annabeth. He was sending me straight into the heart of the battle to annoy the flag guards with charmspeak for a bit, while the Apollo and Athena kids would close in on the flag in two different directions in some sort of sneak attack. I didn't really know the fine details. All I knew was that I was to generally be a complete nuisance.

Fine by me.

As Chiron recited the rules (no maiming, ugh), I tensed with _Katoptris_ at the ready.

"And begin!"

At that I was off, speeding as quickly as I could through the woods and across the creek. I vaguely noticed some Demeter campers as I ran over the border, but they were gone in a blur as I kept on running.

Then I spotted it: the one piece of red in the entire area (Ares currently had the flag).

The flag was sitting atop Zeus's fist, waiting tauntingly for me to arrive.

Of course, Clarisse was also waiting.

I had no intention of getting within stabbing distance of that horrid electric spear of hers, instead sauntering into sight and earshot but still a good twenty metres away. "Hi Clarisse! I'm just going to sit here and do nothing." I gestured to the lowest of the rocks in pile before sitting down on one that was sitting next to a particularly large gash in the ground. "And so are you."

Clarisse's eyes clouded over, and she made towards one of the other rocks, before realising that I had charmspeaked her and turning with a snarl. "STOP THAT!"

"Stop what? I just want to sit here. Don't you?"

Clarisse sat down again, before realising exactly what I was doing. "Do you want a piece of the mind, punk? Because I'll show you just what that-"

She stopped mid sentence. "What was that?"

I stared at her in surprise. "What was what?" I froze as I heard a clunking noise beneath me. "That? It sounded like it coming from-" My voice died away.

Where was I sitting again?

A large gash in the ground…

 _Idiot_.

I stood up slowly and carefully backed away from the ground. "I think that's the entrance to the Labyrinth."

Clarisse's face drained of all colour. "Of course it is." She hopped off of the rocks where she was standing to come down to my level.

Together we backed further from the entrance.

"Did they seal it off? With the barrier? Because this was a hole last time."

Clarisse nodded. "We sealed that breach last summer. Nothing can get through."

She didn't sound convinced.

"What even _was_ that sound? It sounded like… like… um…" I _definitely_ recognised the sound. "Like elevator doors. But why would there be an elevator in the Labyrinth?" I froze again. "I know what it is."

Clarisse glared at me. "Well, duh, an elevator."

"No, it's the Doors of Death."

Clarisse frowned, as she gazed into the gash in the ground again. "The what?"

I swallowed. "The Doors of Death. Thanatos' cheat code in and out of the Underworld. They were in Epirus and… They were in Tartarus. But they moved away. I'm sure."

Clarisse's face was so terrified that it might have been funny if the situation wasn't so serious. "Are you saying that a door to _Hell_ has just opened up beneath our feet."

"Probably -" I was cut off again by a grunt below us.

"My head!" came a good-natured sounding voice. "You didn't tell me that the ceiling would be so _low_."

"I am sorry. I did not know exactly where we would come out."

"Where were you aiming? Because I'm not convinced that this is the right place. I see no mortals."

"I was aiming for the Greek demigod camp. It _must_ be near to here."

Clarisse and I tensed again. The only people that knew about Camp Half-Blood and didn't call it that were monsters. And talking about mortals? Unsurprising, I had to say. They probably wanted to eat us.

But they didn't know about the Labyrinth. So they couldn't have been out of Tartarus recently. That didn't narrow it down that much. There must be thousands of monsters in Tartarus.

I stopped dead as they continued to talk. "Well, figure out where we're going soon! We don't have very long, in case you hadn't noticed. I _know_ that you're not a healer, but can't you tell? This is not a matter of hours now! We don't have much time left! Father's realm is not kind to his kind!"

That piqued my interest. _Father's realm_. Did that make the mysterious speakers giants? But the giants were all vanquished in the War.

 _His kind._ Who? And _not a healer_.

It hit me like a brick in the face.

Ignoring Clarisse's cry of alarm, I dashed back and jumped into the crevasse, yelling 'Get Will! NOW!' even as I plunged into the Labyrinth.

I landed in an earthen tunnel and opposite me not ten metres were two huge figures and a kitten. They were facing the other way, mercifully.

One was considerably taller than the other, and bent double against the relatively high ceiling. He had russet-red dragon's legs. My instincts screamed for me to run. That was a _giant_.

But I stayed, staring at the second figure. He was tall and glowed with a silver light. He was dressed in ripped janitor's overalls and had a spear-tipped broom strapped to his back.

As I watched, the kitten gave a purr like the engine of a Ferrari and briefly flashed, X-ray style. Creepy.

"Excuse me?" I asked, before I could think too much and talk myself out of it.

The kitten was the first to react, spinning around, tilting its head, and stalking towards me, before winding around my legs in a freakily innocent kitten-like fashion, purring so low that I thought that it might bring the roof of the tunnel down on me.

The giant reacted slowly, having difficult manoeuvring in the cramped space. But he turned, and asked in a deep rumble, "Yes, half-blood?"

But I had eyes only for the silver man, who turned last, very carefully shielding the figure in his arms from any debris.

I understood why they were in such a hurry, anyway. I only needed one glance at Percy's chalky complexion and the bloodied tears in his clothes to understand the urgency of the situation. I gestured to the sunlight shafting down into the tunnel above me. "I can get you in. I'll just need your names to do it."

"Damasen," the giant rumbled. "And he is Iapetus. But he prefers Bob. The cat is Small Bob."

I schooled my features into neutrality. This wasn't strange at all, was it?

"Okay then. I, Piper McLean, head counsellor of the Aphrodite cabin, formally allow Damasen and Iapetus or Bob, and Small Bob to enter Camp Half-Blood."

I turned and jumped onto a convenient rock, hoisting myself up out of the crevasse and back to the base of Zeus' Fist. Small Bob bounded up after me.

I got out of the way as Damasen forced his huge frame through the gap, standing up and taking a single step out of the crevasse. 'Bob' followed very carefully after him, carrying Percy.

I turned to face them. "Stay here. I need to get the Activities Director. And I think that someone else is bringing a healer."

I didn't wait for them to give me a response before I had spun around and was hurtling through the trees, yelling at the dryads to give me an easy way to Chiron.

They did, fortunately, and before I knew it, I was sprinting towards the centaur. "Chiron!"

The aforementioned centaur spun, tail swishing. "Piper?"

"Giant and Titan…" I panted, "at Zeus' Fist."

Chiron's eyes widened. "How-?"

I cut him off. "I let them in."

Chiron's expression turned to horror. He opened his mouth to speak, only for me to cut across him again.

"They've got Percy."

Chiron's ever-changing expression was now of genuine shock. He pulled a conch horn from his belt and blew it loudly, before saying to a nearby dryad, "The game is over. Spread the word, please." He turned to me again. "At Zeus' Fist?"

I nodded. "I sent Clarisse to find Will. I'm going to go and fetch Annabeth."

Chiron nodded. "Well done." And at that, he galloped off.

I turned and set off again, this time sprinting back towards the main camp and out of the woods. The trees had sensed my urgency and didn't try to get me lost, so before I knew it I was out of the woods and making a beeline for the Athena cabin.

I didn't bother with knocking, instead throwing my whole weight against the door. It swung open to reveal Annabeth staring somewhat blankly at a blueprint, looking for all the world as if she wished she were somewhere else.

"Annabeth!"

She turned to look at me, a blank expression sitting across her face. "Why did you just crash into my cabin?"

"Percy," I panted.

Annabeth shot to her feet, discarding the pencil that was sat behind her ear and staring at me with the clearest expression she'd worn in days. "What about him?" she demanded.

"At Zeus' Fist," I rushed.

"What?"

"You heard me. A Titan and a giant brought him here."

Annabeth's eyes widened comically. "A silver Titan?"

I nodded. "With a cat."

"Really?"

I smiled at her as those grey eyes filled with hope again.

"Yes."

She shook her head slightly, as if trying to compose herself. "What are we waiting for?"

We dashed out of the door together, only stopping by the infirmary to grab Will's med case. Annabeth snatched it from me and dashed on, desperation lending her feet wings. I lagged behind somewhat, weighed down by armour as I was. Plus I'd already done a lot of running, and it was starting to drag at my speed.

o0O0o

By the time I arrived at the clearing, a small crowd had already gathered. I began to shepherd them away, fully aware that Will had his hands full without having to deal with the stress of the staring eyes of fifty demigods.

"Piper! Why are you doing this? We want to help!"

I ignored them, grabbing arms and leading them firmly away. "Don't. You'll only crowd Will. He needs to concentrate, and he can't with all of you watching."

They didn't seem convinced. I added a little charmspeak the next time around, finally getting the crowds to disperse, even if they went sulkily.

Then I turned to Will and Annabeth, both of whom were kneeling on the ground before a prone figure. The Titan and giant were standing a short distance away, looking unbelievably awkward.

Chiron had helped me with the crowds, but was now standing next to Will, tail swishing anxiously. I, too, had no idea what to do with myself, feeling that I should help, but unsure of how to.

My opportunity came after about five seconds.

"Can someone get water?" Will asked brusquely, not speaking that loudly, but voice still carrying over the whole clearing.

"On it," I said immediately, dashing off again, grabbing the bucket of grenades from one of the Hephaestus campers and tipping the explosives unceremoniously onto the ground, before hurtling off to the creek, which was about two hundred metres to the right of Zeus' Fist.

I washed the bucket out quickly, getting rid of any traces of motor oil or gunpowder, before filling it with clear creek water and dashing back as quickly as I could without spilling it everywhere. Will took it from me with muttered thanks. I took it upon myself to completely disperse the crowds, which were now standing at the edge of the clearing. "Shoo! Everyone back to their cabins! Go go go!"

They grumbled, but complied, heading off moodily through the woods and leaving us in a small cluster around Percy. By the time I turned back to Will, he had emptied the bucket over Percy and was holding the bucket out for me to go and fill.

I returned with the bucket, and Will tipped the contents over Percy again.

If it was having any effect, I wasn't seeing it.

Will snapped his med case shut. "I don't know what to do," he admitted, looking completely lost. "We'd better try getting him into the creek. Maybe the running water can help. If I'm going to be honest, I don't know how he's still alive, so I don't know what I can do without killing myself or him in the process."

Bob gently picked Percy up, before following Will over to the creek. Annabeth walked alongside the Titan, looking shell-shocked.

o0O0o

The majority of the Camp felt quite awkward with a giant and Titan around. I mean I don't blame them; I'm pretty sure Nico mentioned Bob trying to kill them once. Plus, the Giants had kind of been our last major battle.

So it was awkward.

And made extra awkward by the fact that the Titan and giant seemed to be completely oblivious to the awkward nature of the situation.

"Maybe you can help with setting up Harley's obstacle course?" Chiron suggested to a rather upset Bob, who had scared the majority of the pegasi away. "It will be a lot quicker for everyone."

Bob nodded, clearly disheartened by everyone's lack of trust in him, and ran off towards the woods where the son of Hephaestus was setting up some sort of mish-mash of traps and obstacles.

Damasen, on the other hand, was getting along well with some of the children of Harmonia, especially Alia, the head of Cabin 26. They'd somehow bonded and now Damasen was an honorary member of their cabin. Not that he'd actually fit inside, but it was a title that he cherished.

It had been nearly a day and a half since they had brought Percy back, and the tension was at breaking point. I spent almost all of my time breaking up small fistfights (mostly started by children of Ares) before they turned into full-out brawls. The other part of my time was spent with Annabeth in the infirmary, trying to calm her down whenever Percy twitched violently in his sleep.

Seriously, she was like a mother hen; every time someone tried to approach Percy in his sleep, she'd herd them away, even if it was Peter or Flic coming to check on him. It was almost ridiculous. They weren't going to murder him in his sleep.

But it was understandable; Annabeth had been through so much with Percy _(Hell_ , for the sake of the gods). She blamed herself for him getting captured by Nyx, so she was desperate to make things right.

I got where she was coming from.

But she was being overly dramatic. Percy was - is - a legend; nobody at Camp would ever have even thought to hurt him, _ever_.

If only Nyx had that kind of sentiment.

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 **Thanks for reading and don't forget to shoot us a review!**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	47. Ellie XIV

**Hello, we are (slightly) alive. Sorry for how long it's been, but with our school trip and the admin-y stuff to do after the school trip it's taken us a little while to get around to this. Oh and by the way, we probably won't be updating next week, as it's half term and we won't be able to edit together. Sorry. However, we will be running a cake and coffee stall together at our (AHermioneH's) local bonfire and also going to a theme park together, so we're doing more in real life stuff than online stuff at the moment (gasp, I know).**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Hagbraten (Walley) - Thanks for another awesome review! We're so glad that you like the fic so much, even with the plot holes, but as you said, school has to come first (unfortunately). Yeah, the entire 'Argo Crew' are essentially in the story, but not, as we kept forgetting if they were in the scene or not when writing it (we especially congratulate Rick for somehow managing to juggle all of the characters).**

 **Quihi - Yep. Do you know how close we were to killing someone off? That ' | | ' close.**

 **SierraDelta - Don't worry we're not giving up now.**

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Ellie POV

Piper and I swapped the job of who looked after Annabeth after one of the Ares campers managed to hospitalise one of the poor Hermes kids. By poor, I mean hadn't been at Camp long enough to have pranked anyone properly yet.

So I was the one who sat awkwardly on the hard chairs in the infirmary next to Annabeth, who spent most of her time staring blankly at the wall. Which was creepy. Yep, definitely one of the creepiest and scariest things I've seen as a demigod.

I had to remember everything for her. I found this out the hard way after sitting in one place for three hours and then realising that we'd missed lunch and she had no intention of getting anything.

So, my job was to try and keep an unresponsive Annabeth alive and functioning while the healers brought Percy back from the dead.

I wasn't sure who had it easier, to be completely honest.

Eventually, Will let me in with my poison-eliminating fire thingy.

It made little visible difference to Percy's state (aka unconscious), but made me feel better.

It was six days after Percy arrived at camp when he awoke.

 _Six whole days_.

Annabeth refused to leave the infirmary for that entire time, even though Will refused to let her in. So she sat stubbornly in the waiting room. On the hard chairs.

And when Percy did wake, she wouldn't take no for an answer.

I stood patiently beside her for five minutes while she argued with Will, voice rising with fury.

She was in tears by the time that Will finally relented and let her see him.

I stood outside awkwardly.

Very awkwardly.

Will eventually chased her out, insisting that Percy needed to rest (even though he'd been unconscious for six days. Apparently that didn't count).

Apparently seeing her boyfriend alive and lucid (well, maybe) for all of two minutes was enough to make Annabeth shake off her lethargy and basically buzz around the infirmary in an irritating fashion until the healers let her help out.

"Please! You let me do this when I was twelve! At least let me do it now! This is my boyfriend we're talking about." She slammed her hand on the bedside table so hard that both Austin and the currently injured Nyssa jumped in their places.

Will turned around and rubbed his eyes. "Please, Annabeth, can you stop harassing the patients and healers. I know you've had a long week; so has everyone else. If you want to stay in the infirmary, sure, but please just try not to shout. It'll give me a headache, for one. I've hardly slept for this entire week."

Annabeth glared at him with a blazing fire in her eyes. "I can at least do _something_ , can't I?"

Will looked around, before turning to me. "Uhh, yeah. You can help Ellie roll up all of the bandages that unravelled and went everywhere after Harley's slight explosion."

Apparently it had rocked the floor of the camp so hard, the trinkets in the attic all fell off of the walls and it had been an _interesting_ cleanup, to say the least.

So I led her gently by the shoulder to the tangle of cloth.

Geez, we were going to look like flippin' mummies trying to untangle all of this.

o0O0o

Three hours and several incidents of tripping myself up by rolling bandages that I was apparently standing on, Annabeth went back to Will and told him that she'd finished the job that we'd been allocated.

She was going to be a right pain in the backside.

She also didn't return to where I was sitting in the storage cupboard. I decided to assume that that meant that Percy had properly woken up now.

Maybe.

Or maybe Will had finally relented and let her help.

I was slightly offended that I had been forgotten. But anyway. I was supposed to be looking after her. If my charge decided to walk off, it was my job to find her. So I got up and left the storage cupboard, going to find her.

I came across Will first. He looked a little bit dazed, but that might have been tiredness. I sincerely hoped that Annabeth hadn't just decked Camp's best healer, anyway. He smiled at me weakly.

"Hey. Percy's actually coherent now, you know, if you want to see him."

I blinked. "Okay… Sure… I'll go and see them now. Is Annabeth with him?"

Will smiled slightly. "What do you think?"

I nodded at him before running off to see the couple.

Percy nodded at me as I arrived, though I could tell that his head was swimming. "Hey."

"Hi. How are you feeling?"

Percy tried to sit up, before wincing in pain and flopping back. "Not good, I think is the answer to that. Better, definitely. But I _do_ still feel somewhat like I've been hit by a truck. That's _probably_ not a good sign."

If he was feeling up to sarcasm, it couldn't be that bad. I smiled before turning to Annabeth. "Are _you_ feeling better then?" The grin that spread across her face was all I needed to see.

Hey, if she was feeling better, then hopefully the general mood of the whole camp would lighten.

Percy's survival would definitely boost morale.

Said demigod turned back to me. "Are Bob and Damasen okay? And Small Bob, of course?"

I grinned back. "Damasen is an honorary member of the Harmonia cabin, and has spent a lot of time talking to the Demeter campers about farming techniques. He's helped here as well, with herb lore. Bob is settling a little more slowly, but more people are accepting him, so he's a lot happier. He's quite good friends with some of the cleaning harpies. They're looking after him, and trying to kill anyone who upsets him. It's the funniest thing. And the cat? Everyone loves him. He is honestly going to be so fat if he keeps getting treats from every camper who passes by, honestly."

Percy smiled again. "Good. I'd hate it if they'd gone to all the effort of getting me out for nobody to accept them here. They need somewhere to be happy."

Annabeth nodded in agreement. "Even if they don't stay here permanently, they deserve it."

Kayla chose that moment to stick her head round the door. "Are you guys all okay?"

Percy waved at her. "Sort of."

Kayla smiled. "Gods, I'd forgotten how insufferable you are when you're awake."

Percy feigned hurt. "I'm not insufferable. I- You know, that is _far_ too long a word for when you have a splitting headache already. It's a whole," he counted, "four syllables! One word with four syllables. Why? I swear it only exists to torture us with dyslexia who can't spell."

Annabeth grinned at Kayla. "First of all, it's actually five syllables."

Percy shushed her. "I see what you mean by insufferable. And I _swear_ it's four. In-suff-ra-ble. Four."

Kayla sighed. "He's fine. Why am I even remotely worried about his health again?"

Annabeth mirrored Kayla's sigh. "I have absolutely no idea. Why are any of us sitting here? He's _clearly_ not about to die, is he?"

Percy looked affronted. "You're _all_ clearly not worried enough."

Kayla snorted and swiped her ginger and green hair behind one ear. "You weren't exactly panicking about bleeding out either, when you arrived here."

"I was unconscious!"

"So?" Kayla held out her arms in a mock-surprised gesture. "My point still stands."

"I might have been worried if I had been conscious for long enough during the last three days to worry about it, I guess." He said it offhandedly, but there was definitely meaning behind his words.

Which suddenly hit us all like a ton of bricks. He had been _tortured,_ and here we were joking about how he had been bleeding out.

And Nyx hadn't just vanished.

Oh, far from it. She was probably livid.

And she almost definitely wasn't through with attacking us.

"But hey-" Percy said, "It wasn't too bad. Tame even; Kronos definitely did a lot worse like in the two seconds I was on the Princess Andromeda. She really needs to improve her torture techniques."

None of us believed him for even one second.

It was one of Percy's personality traits to take a situation and make light of it; make us less worried about him.

It really wasn't working.

But anyhow.

Annabeth leaned into him and started (uncharacteristically) stroking Percy's cheek.

I decided now might be a good time to leave before I upset Percy anymore, so made a polite (if kind of hurried) goodbye and left, dragging Kayla out behind me before shutting the door.

Kayla looked a little put out at my manhandling. "Why?"

"If Annabeth wants to know the details, I don't want Percy to be all embarrassed because we're there. Yeah?"

Kayla sighed. "Alright. But if she _does_ upset him and sets his recovery back I'm going to punch her lights out. Will is practically dying due to lack of sleep at the moment."

"Well, I guess I'll say good luck for _that_. See ya, Kayla. If Annabeth hasn't killed you."

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! See you whenever we can next update. Hopefully soon-ish.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	48. Annabeth III

**Hey, sorry about the long break. We were drowning in homework, yet again and it doesn't look like it'll be letting up for a while. But ignoring how school is trying to murder us, on with the fic! It's kinda angsty here, but nevermind. We struggle to write fluff, so anything remotely fluffy is instantly turned to pure angst. Oops.**

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* * *

Annabeth POV

I leaned into Percy and grabbed his red-raw wrist (the Stolls had made short work of the manacles). "What did _she_ do to you?"

Percy closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "I _knew_ you'd ask at some point." His breath came short as I ran my hand down his leg, inspecting the damage. My hand hit a deep gash on his thigh. Percy hissed, " _Schist_."

"What _did she do_?" My words also came out as a hiss, but this time angry rather than pained.

"Daggers." Percy winced again.

"Where?" I pulled his shirt up to reveal his stomach. There was another gash that was healing there.

"Shoulder as well."

I ended up pulling his shirt off completely to reveal the largest of the gashes, which was deep and clearly painful, right under his collarbone. " _Hades_." I flinched at the sight of the blood-stained skin. "That's it! I'm getting Will. _Solace_!"

Percy sighed. "He knows it's there, you realise."

"Yes, but I'm still getting this checked under my supervision. _Will, get your damned butt in here!"_

Will poked his head through the door. "What?"

I _almost_ felt bad about yelling for him then, because Will looked absolutely exhausted: bags under bloodshot eyes, the works. I pointed at the wound on Percy's shoulder. "Have you seen this?"

Will looked at me (no, I literally mean he gave me the _look_. The 'I'm honestly so done' one). "Yes. Did you wake me up from the first ten minutes of uninterrupted sleep I've had all flipping week to ask me this?"

It was then my turn to glare. "Is that a problem?"

Will just sighed, apparently too tired to argue. "No."

"Can you do anything about this?"

"If I could, I'd already have, Annabeth. Going anywhere near it is really painful for him. If I was able to do anything, I'd have done it when he was still asleep."

I sighed. "Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"That's not good enough." My voice cracked. "We have to do _something_."

Percy grabbed my hand from behind me. I spun to look at him. "Don't yell at Will. It's not his fault."

Something inside me cracked at that. "No? It's not his fault?" But then whatever dam had been holding my emotions in check splintered and fell down. I felt tears springing to the corners of my eyes. "Of course it's not his fault. It's mine, isn't it?"

Percy looked genuinely shocked. "No, Annabeth. Why would you think that? Of _course_ it's not your fault. How could it be your fault?"

"Because I _goaded_ her into taking you! I didn't think it through! If I'd only done _something_ instead of just trying to save _myself_ then none of this would have happened!" I felt close to tears and clearly both Percy and Will weren't sure what to do about that. I wasn't, either.

I knew I'd done a bad job of keeping my emotions in check the past couple of weeks.

I'd snapped at people who hadn't done anything wrong.

I'd refused to let anyone else share my emotional burden; tried to take it all on my own shoulders, but ended up collapsing under the strain.

I'd just been a really _horrible_ person.

But this?

This was everything I'd felt and bottled up over two whole weeks of mental pain, all coming to the surface.

And for once in my life, I had absolutely no idea what to do.

So I didn't lash out at Will when he took me by the shoulders and sat me back in the chair.

And there was no way I'd have been able to contain the tears any longer, anyway. A sob wracked my body.

Percy jolted up in his bed, probably realising how stressed I was. I could barely see what was going on, but I think that Percy tried to get out of bed and Will stopped him.

"No! I have to help her." Percy sounded close to frustration. "Please."

Will forced him back. "You'll pull your stitches. Stay there."

"I have to, Will. What if Nico was going into another of his moods? Would you really let me stop you?"

"Percy, this is really not the time."

"Isn't it?"

Will gave up, and let Percy get up with a groan. He rushed over to me as fast as he could with stitches in his collarbone and leg, and grabbed me by the shoulders, kneeling down in front of me with a barely audible hiss. "Shhh... It's alright. It's not as bad as holding up the sky, is it?"

I shook my head silently, tears running down my face.

Percy shushed me gently again. "I don't blame you, Annabeth. I _don't._ "

I slowly lifted my gaze to meet Percy's and sniffed miserably. "But it _is_ my fault," I whispered defeatedly.

Percy shook his head determinedly. "It's not. If it's anyone's fault, it's _mine_. For trying that stupid move in the first place. Annabeth, don't give in to it. This is what Nyx wants! She _wants_ you to blame yourself, to separate yourself from everyone else. It makes you an easier target. But you're stronger than her. Aren't you?"

I dropped my gaze again.

He was just so _wrong_. I wasn't strong like he thought I was. I couldn't do this.

Percy squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. "Annabeth? Come on, Annabeth. _I_ believe in you. _Even_ if what happened was your fault, which it _wasn't_ , that doesn't mean that I'll hate you. It _doesn't_."

A tiny spark of hope flickered inside me.

I took a deep breath and turned to look at Percy again. He smiled gently, then pulled me into a hug, even though the action must have pained him.

I appreciated the gesture and didn't push him away.

We stayed like that for a few seconds; just enough time for me to control my sobbing (aka turn it down from uncontrollable flood to quiet-ish sniffling).

Percy gently pulled away, but kept his hands on my shoulders, asking me silently if I was okay.

I nodded.

Percy gave a small smile and made as if to stand up, but as soon as he tried to put weight on his injured leg he collapsed with a curse.

Will had been awkwardly standing in a corner for our exchange, but bolted upright and dashed over. He slung Percy's arm over his shoulder and supported most of his weight as he staggered upright, both of them cursing fluently.

Will managed to help Percy back over to the bed, onto which he fell heavily, still swearing.

"You _idiot_ ," Will was saying. "You absolute gods-damned _idiot_. I _told_ you. Now look what you've done!"

I grabbed Will's med case from the corner of the room and took it to him.

"Thanks, Annabeth. Um… You might not want to stay for much longer."

I nodded, getting the hint. "That's alright. I'll come back in the morning. Percy, you're not allowed to die before then. Is that clear?"

"Crystal."

I smiled wanly and turned, somehow managing to forcing myself to leave the room.

I didn't want Percy to be in pain because of me.

But, somehow, I knew that he would be more upset if I stayed in the infirmary for another night and refused to look after myself.

So I went to dinner that evening, and slept in the Athena cabin.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading, reviewing and (hopefully) enjoying this fic. See you whenever we can, especially as NaNoWriMo is starting and we both have original works to write this month, but we'll try.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	49. Percy VI

**Hi! We are actually alive!**

 **Sorry for not updating. You may have noticed that we mentioned NaNoWriMo at the end of the last chapter? Well, I'm still going. AHermioneH gave up after, like, three days, but decided that editing without me was a far too arduous task to attempt alone. And today's the first day we've both managed to find a computer and sit down to edit, so sorry about that.**

 **Well, here is an intense chapter in which we kill yet another of our cardboard OCs.**

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 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**

* * *

Percy POV

After a couple more days, Will finally let me out of the infirmary.

Finally.

I wasn't fully healed, but apparently Will thought that I was unlikely to kill myself, so I was therefore finally allowed to leave before I went completely nuts.

The first thing I did was rush into the Athena cabin, barging past Malcolm to get to Annabeth's bunk, where she was sitting with a pile of blueprints. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her off of her bed, not even giving her a chance to say anything, and hugged her.

"Percy, what-?"

"Shhh, it's alright." I stroked her hair. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?" Her tears had started rolling into my shirt.

"For scaring you and for not being strong enough and just for _everything_."

She shoved me as she broke our hug. "Seaweed Brain." She rolled her eyes. "How could you ever think that _you_ weren't strong enough? You've been to Hell, _twice_. Nobody can ever say otherwise."

"I'm still sorry for scaring you."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I don't care." I dragged her by the hand again and out of the cabin. "Come on. I got something set up for us."

o0O0o

I led her down to the beach, where Will, Nico, Danny and Ellie were waiting for us. I'd asked for Danny to set up a little picnic for us by the sea. And true to his word he had.

There was a basket and some glasses and a checkered rug and it was basically just a little and completely adorable picnic. Annabeth gasped behind me. "What is this?"

I grinned back at her and led her under one of the lines of bunting that Ellie and Will had strung up for us. "And you thought that I couldn't organise a date. Pfft." I sat her down on the rug next to me and grabbed one of the cans of coke that Travis had smuggled into Camp for me.

Annabeth raised her eyebrows at me. "It's surprising, I have to say."

Danny came forward holding a ukulele. He'd spent all of freshman year learning how to play it. I grinned as he pressed the ukulele to his chest and opened his mouth to -

The sky went black, as if squid ink had been poured into it and diffused swiftly across the whole of the sky, obliterating the sun.

"Schist."

o0O0o

Okay, I'll admit it. I jumped straight up and began yelling at the sky.

What was _wrong_ with that goddess? The _one time_ I tried to make a romantic gesture, _without_ the help of a god, and then she comes and crashes the party.

Naturally.

Annabeth and Ellie legged it to find gear.

I flexed my shoulder nervously. That was the nastiest of the wounds that Nyx had given me and would definitely impede my fighting, as it was my sword arm. I pulled Riptide out with my right arm and left it in pen form, worried that even the weight of the sword might pull my stitches. I hit the button on my watch, pulling up the replacement shield.

It felt way heavier than usual.

Gods, I should not be fighting.

But hey. Nyx wasn't exactly giving me a choice.

Well, speak of the devil and he appears. The Queen of Hell herself landed on the beach in her war chariot with a rattle of wheels and a swirl of dark energy.

Gods, someone really needed to teach those horses about bad words. They needed their mouths washing out.

"Perseus Jackson, fancy seeing you here."

"Whenever someone says that, I know it's not a coincidence. And please, it's Percy."

"You know, I am extraordinarily surprised that you made it here alive. It is an impressive feat, you know. You had help, no doubt, but I am impressed anyway." She smiled, or rather bared her teeth, and waved her hands in the air, much like the Wicked Witch of the West.

"Unfortunately, you are about to die!"

She swung her arms down in a vicious chopping motion, and the very sand erupted with black energy. I prayed to my dad as I pulled the water over the sand as quickly as I could to cover the darkness. The water swirled through the shadows. For a second I thought that I was winning.

Then tendrils of darkness began to ooze into my wave.

I doubled over, the strain of holding back whatever shadows Nyx had created almost too much to bear.

But maybe my dad _had_ answered, by giving me the strength I needed to hold the inky black at bay for a short while. Nico jumped into the shadow, doing the same dramatic thing as Nyx, but swinging his arms in an up motion.

Most of the darkness dissipated. What was left swirled aimlessly for a few seconds before winking out of existence.

I nearly collapsed with exhaustion as Ellie and Annabeth arrived back at the beach. I looked up and realised that Danny was standing in the sort of awkward superhero position.

It clicked; it hadn't been Dad helping me, but Danny; finally mastering his powers. Maybe he couldn't directly control the water, but he could lend strength to those who could? I had no idea, but Danny didn't look like he would be able to lift a raindrop right now. Or ever; but I never said that, nope, never.

Besides, whether or not Danny had powers was not going to be a major issue right now. I flinched as Nyx manipulated Nico's own ribbons of darkness into seizing his wrist. _Schist,_ that went badly way too quickly. Almost as soon as I thought this, a shot of light slammed into Nico's wrist and pulled him away from Nyx. Only one thought was running through my mind at that point and it was not child friendly (in front of Danny). I turned slightly to see Will standing there, looking furious.

"Don't you _dare_ touch him. I don't care if you're a goddess or even godsdamned Chaos! I will _kill_ you!"

That was quite extreme. I could've sworn that Will was a pacifist and generally thought that violence was stupid and meant that he had to work extra hours to keep people alive.

But apparently that all went out of the window when his boyfriend was concerned. Another tendril of light wrapped around Nyx's wrist and stayed there, even as she tried to shake it off.

She changed tack and shot a concentrated bolt of darkness from her free hand, using it like a chainsaw to sever the light beam. As the link from the beam to Will was severed, the light faded out and vanished.

And then it returned as Ellie gripped Will's wrist, crimson flames wreathing around her. Will looked up at her in confusion, before clearly grasping what I could not.

Then it hit me.

 _Of course_.

Ellie's powers didn't work on physical injuries because _she_ wasn't healing them.

Her power was much more like Reyna's: giving strength to others, not simply he

aling them.

Hey, it wasn't quite like how the Phlegethon worked in real life, but it was cool.

I was going off track again.

Even from my distance, I could tell that Ellie was fading. Her powers were great, but only extended to short bursts.

She was going to collapse from the strain and then Will would be on his own again.

His light powers were new.

He was going to get pulped by Nyx.

That thought train was exhausting for my slow and already exhausted mind, but I got there in the end. I sent a ribbon of water towards Nyx, wrapping it around her waist and pinning her wings to her back.

Her horses whinnied at me furiously, stamping their feet even as their legs shimmered, made from ethereal darkness.

Nyx herself turned to glare at me.

Well, it wasn't quite what I had intended, but it had given Will a moment's respite.

He hit her right in the eyes. Go William.

Nyx snarled at both of us (an impressive feat, considering we were standing about fifty metres apart), before slamming a black wave into me.

Hey, I had no time to react. I managed to get my shield up, but the wave was so potent I was simply whacked backwards like I'd been hit by a giant baseball bat anyway.

I landed on something very hard.

Then whacked against something very hard.

The impact rang in my very bones.

I opened my eyes slowly, before very carefully trying to sit up. That was a really bad idea, as a wave of agony swept through me. I didn't think that I'd broken my back on landing, but whether I had any ribs left in one piece was questionable. Eventually I managed to sit up and see where I'd landed. In the porch of the Big House. Literally in it.

Wow. That meant I'd flown a good four hundred metres.

Maybe that was why impact had hurt quite so much.

I put my right hand behind me and managed to push myself upwards enough to actually stand. It was a massive mistake. The twisting action caused my stitches (which had already taken a bashing as I landed) to pull. Blood began to trickle from my shoulder.

I swore fluently. No doubt I'd pull the ones in my leg as well walking over to the fight which Nyx had so helpfully thrown me miles away from. And the ones in my stomach? Well, they were still intact for the time being, but as they'd pull as well if I had to start fighting hand-to-hand.

So, all in all, I was a wreck.

But I still had to help.

A fire began to boil inside me.

I wasn't going to let Nyx hurt anyone that I cared about. So I put one foot in front of the other, even though it hurt.

That goddess was going to _pay_.

Well, assuming that Will hadn't killed her already.

I gave a whistle, deciding that I was more likely to keel over than actually reach the fight.

Mrs O'Leary materialised from a shadow, faithful as ever. I somehow managed to haul myself onto her back, and pointed her in the right direction. She leapt off, making short work of the distance back to the beach, and coming to a skidding halt at the top of the dunes.

I slid from her back and found my feet, feeling somewhat unsteady.

The fight was not going well.

Hey, I was maybe expecting worse, but that didn't mean that it was good.

Ellie was crumpled in the sand, completely unconscious. Will had a nasty cut in his hairline and was blinking blood out of his eyes, but otherwise looked relatively alright. Nico had his work cut out deflecting shadows from everyone. Clearly nobody else wanted to get thrown to the Big House. Danny was looking about as good as I felt, and holding a sword that was clearly too heavy for him. Nyx hadn't walloped him, so apparently didn't see him as a threat. Annabeth was nowhere to be seen. I hoped that meant that she was wearing her hat, and hadn't also been smacked halfway across Camp.

The picnic was abandoned on the sand a little further off.

That alone made me furious.

Somehow, my fury lent me strength, and I dug deep, before releasing my anger in a ten-foot wave that crashed into Nyx, drawing from strength reserves that I wasn't even aware existed.

The goddess shrieked, slapping at the water that now reversed direction and swept around her like a cocoon. My breath shuddered in my chest as I willed the water to freeze, forming an almost impenetrable cage of ice around her.

I lowered my hands slowly, exhaling heavily and generally relishing the momentary respite.

Will turned to look up at where I was standing on the top of the dune, looking somewhat confused.

I gave him a weary wave.

He waved back, in the fashion that people often do when waving back at someone who they don't recognise.

There was a cracking from the ice prison.

Couldn't the damn goddess stay down for _one minute_?

I pulled at the ice shards, melting and refreezing some of them and reinforcing the cracks.

The cracking grew louder.

I concentrated harder, pouring all of my remaining energy into maintaining the ice walls.

The pressure on the walls ceased. I let the power leach from the walls, only concentrating on keeping it frozen.

That was my biggest mistake, as a sudden surge of power smashed against the walls. I lurched forwards in a desperate attempt to hold them, but it was far too late.

The walls shattered, shards of ice flying.

My hold slipped completely, and Nyx burst from her icy prison in all of her darkness and rage. "What part of 'I will kill you, puny demigods!' do you not understand! I am going to destroy you all!" Nyx roared and the tendrils, of darkness started to unfurl towards us again.

What was wrong with that goddess?

Seriously. Try one thing. It doesn't work. Try it again.

It was exhausting.

I summoned up more water to try and attack Nyx again, but all that I could lift was a couple of drops, and even that had me seeing stars.

My concentration wavered just slightly as a pulse of agony shot through me.

The droplets of water fell from my control.

Thank goodness Peter arrived just in time to help.

Him and seven or so others ran onto the beach, each of them holding a strange variety of weapons. Kayla and Austin were there holding their bows. Lou Ellen, though not holding a physical weapon, had a ball of purple fire in her hand. Piper had Katoptris and other people appeared, but I couldn't tell who they were, as spots started to close in on my vision.

I shook my head to clear the dizziness and spots, then began to walk slowly down the sand dunes. Gods, it felt like it was longer than it was.

Why was I even doing this? I couldn't fight. I'd have uncapped Riptide, but doubted that I'd be able to even lift the point off the ground.

Peter brandished a gold sword in my general direction. "Try and get your energy back. Sit in the sea or something. Leave it to us." I wasn't sure how I could leave it to them, considering only two of them had powers that I knew about.

And besides, Nyx wanted to kill me above anyone else.

And thirdly, I could tell that sitting in the sea was not going to do very much for my present state.

So I refused. "Guys, Nyx wants to kill _me_ more than anyone else. I'm staying."

Peter looked at me skeptically. "Can you even lift a sword? Percy, you don't look like you should be standing, let alone fighting." He pleaded with me. "Sit."

I shook my head. "I won't get up again."

"That's okay."

"No, it most definitely is not."

"Percy, you're going to bleed out if you're not careful right now. You've ripped those stitches in your shoulder pretty badly."

"There's no time for this now. I'll live."

Peter shook his head now. "You might not, Percy."

"Then I'll die trying to destroy this goddess, then."

A familiar blonde demigod materialised at my side. "I'll fight with you, Percy."

I realised then that Annabeth was the only reason that anyone had come to help.

I pulled Riptide from my pocket and uncapped it, bracing myself for the wash of pain from my injured arm as the weight pulled at the wound. Peter glanced over at me as I hissed softly. He raised his eyebrows, but thankfully didn't say anything. I lifted the tip of my sword a little more, into a defensive stance (well, sort of). I heard Peter beginning to speak over the pounding of the blood in my ears. "-ready, guys? Okay then. One, two, three!"

We surged forwards as one unit, diving for Nyx.

Gods, it was painful.

But I still launched myself into the fray, swinging Riptide furiously at Nyx, who only laughed at our efforts and effortlessly batted me aside.

Suddenly she had an enormous Stygian Iron sword in her hand, and the tip was drawing blood at my throat, effectively pinning me to the ground on my back. I mean, I didn't really want to slit my own throat by trying to move. That would be kinda embarrassing.

Then the sword moved. _The flip?_ I turned my head to Nico, who had closed his eyes intently. Oh, Stygian Iron, right. But then Peter jumped in front of the sword.

Confused? So was I.

Then again, you're probably not lying on your back in the middle of a battlefield like I was.

"Listen, please!" Peter begged Nyx.

I didn't hear the next part of the exchange because I rolled over very slowly and tried to stand up.

Key word: _tried_.

Put weight on sword arm? That folded, landing me face-first onto the ground again.

"-you listen to us, we'll be able to reach some sort of agreement! It's them you want, not the whole world!"

"If you defend them, then I shall kill you too!"

I rolled over slightly just in time to watch Peter get skewered by the Stygian Iron sword. I flinched at the sight of him dripping with blood as Nyx shook his limp body off of the blade.

"Stupid demigod," she said. "He was cl-" She was cut off by golden light travelling up the sword, wrapping sinuously around the hilt.

That and the fact that she was stabbed from behind by a familiar-looking spearheaded broom.

Damasen and Bob were stood side by side, repeatedly pummeling and stabbing Nyx with either a broom or a drakon-rib spear.

Nyx shrieked. "What is going -" Her bottom half disintegrated into shadows that were vanquished by another flash of light from Will.

Wow.

Well, I understood now not _what_ , but _who_ , the last line of the prophecy spoke of.

The end of Peter.

And of Nyx.

And I could tell that they were going to need my help.

Well, the help of someone who could wash away the pieces, anyway.

I turned to look up at Nyx, who was now thrashing around and throwing bolts of darkness everywhere.

Then I summoned up what could only be described as strength that I didn't have, and unleashed my fury upon Nyx. Or rather what remained of her.

Yes, fury.

A wave rolled over Nyx once, erasing the motes of black dust that were drifting around her after being struck by Will's light bolts.

She spun to face me, a blazing anger in her onyx black eyes.

She shot all her remaining bolts of darkness.

Straight at me.

Oops. I let the upper half of my body fall flat on the floor again (bashing my nose - it hurt), ducking to avoid the bolts. I raised my hand as much as I could and another wave of water hit Nyx as she slowly began to melt like the Wicked Witch of the West (again).

Unfortunately, she still wasn't done.

Why?

A dark oily liquid spread from where Nyx was melting, trickling in random directions as if searching for something, or someone.

I had a really bad feeling that it would not be a good thing if it hit me.

Unfortunately, my strength and concentration was completely focused on disintegration of an unpleasant goddess.

The oil came closer. The grass around it withered and died.

I threw all of my remaining power into a single, final wave that cannoned into Nyx, scattering her essence to the four winds.

I shut my eyes as the oily substance reached me and seemed to pour liquid fire into my very bones.

* * *

 **Wow, wasn't that cheery? Yay.**

 **Anyway, thanks for reading and putting up with our spontaneous hiatus. I wouldn't expect any more this month, but after that we'll get back to regular updates for a couple of weeks until the holidays start…**

 **Anyway, thanks and see ya next time.**

 **If you could drop us a review, that would be great.**

' **Til next time.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	50. Annabeth IV

**Hi again from the absolutely crazy world of 'The Merge'.**

 **Right, so this chapter is kinda weird and definitely OOC but as we can't be bothered to change it, please don't complain. Yeah. Sorry, but we're tired and lazy. But whoo! It's Chapter 50!**

 **Anyway.**

 **Review Replies:**

 **Hagbraten (Walley): We're really pleased that you liked the chapter so much! Yeah, we see your point about the ice… I don't know about AHermioneH, but I think that the whole 'selling out' thing felt like more of an act/trying to prevent her from destroying the entire world in a random rampage thing to me…? (** _ **I say that it was an act or at least I intended it to be, but if it makes an OC slightly more complex, we can say that he did that, sure)**_ **. We're planning on rewriting at least one of our old fics and eventually posting it, but it might be a while (especially given that these fics are going to need literal, complete rewrites because they are genuinely terrible). Once this laborious task of getting this finished is done. But GCSEs are currently trying to murder us where we stand, so it might be quite a while until you get a fic after this one. But if you have any suggestions, we're planning to do a few fun one-shots in this universe afterwards while the workload is crushing and we don't have the time for a full fic.**

* * *

Annabeth POV

The Apollo cabin needed all the help that they could get.

Even if that meant letting one of their patients (who happened to have nasty acid burns [from rescuing her boyfriend] and a long slash from a Stygian Iron sword on her arm) out of bed to help with cutting bandages and coffee runs.

I wasn't going to _die_ , I insisted.

Considering that the head counsellor of their cabin was currently unconscious anyway, they relented.

So that's how I ended up making coffee in the dining pavilion at 4am three days after the fight with Nyx. Luckily for them, a child of Athena's brain was actually remarkably useful here, as I had quickly memorised everybody's coffee preferences (although most of them were now asking simply for black, as it was strong, with copious amounts of sugar).

I limped back to the infirmary with the tray of steaming mugs, trying to be relatively quiet.

The night before I'd woken up half the camp by tripping and cursing very loudly.

I placed the tray carefully on the table, before grabbing my own cup of coffee and making my way into the 'office' (aka one room that had been hastily converted so that at least one healer was in the infirmary at all times).

Kayla was currently on duty, and nearly asleep.

"Kay? I got you coffee."

She lifted her head and blinked. "Yeah, okay. Thanks, Annabeth. Can you just keep an eye on this while I fetch it and go check on the inmates?"

I nodded, fairly used to this. "Sure."

I then sat down in front of a (magic) holographic screen which displayed the vitals of all of those who were currently in the infirmary.

Anything happened, and it would flash up on here.

Then I could contact Kayla with a walkie-talkie and tell her to get her butt into the room of whoever was dying.

It was fairly straightforward.

I took a sip of my coffee and began a brief check of the historical data, to see if Kayla had missed anything that hadn't red flagged but should really be checked.

Several of the patients had blood pressure figures that were somewhat on the alarming side, but this was actually an improvement from the day before, so I didn't contact her about it.

Kayla herself had a few fairly interesting readings, which the machine had compiled to diagnose her with sleep deprivation, high stress levels and consuming far too much caffeine.

My own readings were almost the same. But I already knew this, so it didn't seem something to panic about.

Kayla returned after about fifteen minutes.

She sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes.

"Anything?" I asked.

Kayla sighed again. "Well, your boyfriend managed to pull a stitch in his sleep again. I still haven't a clue how he does it. But the acid burns are actually starting to heal. And I have no idea if his ribs are recovering and if his strength is returning because he is currently not in any sort of state to be speaking to anybody. Will's actually flagged as simply unconscious instead of comatose now, so things are generally looking up."

I nodded, and yawned. "Maybe we should call next watch. We'll fall asleep in front of the monitor at this rate."

Kayla glanced at her watch. "Alright. We've gone over shift anyway."

I pressed the buzzer to wake up whichever unfortunate soul had drawn the 4-o'clock shift.

o0O0o

This cycle continued for several days afterwards. Draw shifts in the morning, sleep until you're woken, do your shift(s), go back to sleep.

It may sound like there was a lot of sleeping involved.

Trust me, there was not. I tended towards three hours of sleep per day, what with long and often double shifts. Some of the healers were getting even less.

Will woke up after five and a half days, spent half an hour whinging and then promptly fell asleep again.

He started helping with the healing effort after an extra day, much to the irritation of most of the other Apollo campers, who were convinced that he would kill himself with the effort.

However, considering that Will was the most stubborn person alive, getting him to do what they wanted was a lost cause from the word go.

But anyway. The healers needed all the help that they could get. Even if that meant getting the Stolls to steal Coke for them when they got sick of coffee.

Even some of the Ares campers were mucking in and taking over some of the training sessions for the campers who were in or working in the infirmary. [Note that I said _some_. Not _all_ ].

And Chiron was trotting around anxiously and trying to keep camp morale up. Difficult, especially since Mr D had reappeared and spent a whole day complaining about the damage to the Big House porch that had been caused by a low-flying son of Poseidon. He didn't seem overly concerned about the welfare of aforementioned demigod, though. Figures.

Nico had returned to sulking in his cabin for a couple of days, before emerging and deciding that, yes, he would actually do something to help, rather than moaning about his comatose boyfriend.

Not that everyone wanted a son of Hades in the infirmary, but I think that Nico _did_ track down Thanatos and tell him _very_ firmly that _no_ , he was _not_ to take anyone from the camp infirmary. So, at least Kayla was cool with it.

o0O0o

As I finished my shift in the infirmary, Ellie ran in and skidded to a halt next to Percy's bed (where he was still drooling). "Flic..." she huffed, "Claimed... Hive... Which?" I bit my lip.

Hive? Who was that?

I let Ellie drag me by the arm to the volleyball pitch where the Hermes campers and Danny were surrounding the Brit. I turned to Connor. "What did it look like?"

"Uhh... a bee hive." He shrugged. "With like a slice of cheese. I don't know; it was weird."

I racked my brains for knowledge of the majorly minor gods. None of them apparently had claimed demigod children.

And none were the god of bees, or cheese.

I continued thinking.

Then a name floated into my brain, out of the deep dark depths of what can only be described as the _maze_ of my long-term memory.

"Aristaeus!" I blurted out.

Danny blinked up at me. "Bless you?"

"No! That's Flic's dad, you dolt." I cuffed him upside the head.

If possible, Danny now looked even more confused.

I sighed. "Aristaeus. Minor god of beekeeping and cheese, amongst other things."

Flic blinked. "So my dad is a god of cheese. And bees?"

I nodded.

She shrugged slightly. "Cool. So… Why is everyone still crowded around here? I am not going to suddenly start bee-whispering. Nothing exciting is happening…?"

"This is the first really positive thing that's happened since the fight."

"I thought Will woke up a few days ago."

"He did. And that's positive, I know. But it is an event that arose because of the fight with Nyx. This claiming is a completely separate event. One that shows that life will, and is, moving on."

Travis frowned at me. "That's a bit too philosophical for like nine in the morning."

I frowned. "It's nine in the morning?"

Travis glanced down at his (presumably stolen) watch. "Yeah. It's eight forty-three."

I rubbed my eyes. "Gods. I've been up _hours_. It's not even nine yet?"

Travis shook his head.

"This-" I pointed my hand down at the ground. "- is the reason why we should not have a major battle on a Tuesday. We hit Sunday and nobody knows what day it is, let alone what the time is." I said, shaking all over. "So, if you will excuse me, I am going off to sleep."

And at that, I turned on my heel and flounced away.

* * *

 **So… Sorry if that was OOC (it made me cringe to read it but I literally could not be bothered to change it (** _ **and our wifi wasn't really working that well)**_ **, so).**

 **Anyway.**

 **If you have any suggestions for one-shots in this universe, please drop us a review with your suggestion. Don't bother bringing up how bad this chapter is. We'll try and get another one out soon to compensate.**


	51. Percy VII

**We are back (alarmingly quickly) and by we, I mean me (StormSunfire's out doing** _ **another**_ **sport, but she edited, so I can't complain). So yay! Chapter!**

 **Currently just AHermioneH**

* * *

Percy POV

I woke up to the sight of Annabeth feeding me ambrosia again.

"Well, this doesn't give me deja-vu at all," I tried to remark sarcastically.

The sarcasm failed. Might have been that my voice was so raspy and painful that I couldn't speak louder than a loud-ish whisper.

And maybe the fact that Annabeth was literally crying. Not full-on sobbing, but still tears running silently-down-your-face sort of crying. I got the distinct feeling that she might have crushed me in a tearful hug if she wasn't so worried about my health. She leaned close to my ear before whispering, "You still drool in your sleep, moron." Though the kind of menacing tone didn't really work between her hiccups and sniffing.

"At least I'm alive," I said, grinning as much as I could. I winced as I pulled what I assumed to be another stitch. "Kind of, anyway." If I'd been in a normal state, Annabeth would have punched me for that comment. "What's been happening since I collapsed-slash-got-stabbed-again?"

"Um... Will woke up. Nike won Capture the Flag. Flic got claimed." Annabeth listed them off on her fingers.

"Peter?"

Annabeth sighed. "The funeral was six days ago. We notified Camp Jupiter, but they haven't done much in response. I don't think many people were friends with him, you know, because of Octavian. Hopefully it will get through their thick Roman skulls that he was a real hero and a nice guy."

I nodded slowly. Peter had been a friend to me. Not a massively close friend, but still someone that I knew and cared about.

And besides, I was sort of blaming myself for his death.

Annabeth clearly read all of this and more on my face, because her tone was gentle when she spoke again. "He knew what he was doing, Percy. He knew the risks and he knew the price. He could see Damasen and Bob behind her. He _knew_ , Percy. It wasn't your fault."

I nodded glumly, still unconvinced.

Annabeth smiled gently at me, then glanced at her watch and swore. "Gods, the time! Will is going to have my head for staying here so long!"

She shot to her feet. "I'd better go. And Percy?"

"Yeah?"

"Try not to die between now and when I see you again. Which will probably be in about seven hours, considering that it's three in the morning right now."

I blinked. Three am? Ugh. "Okay. No dying. That's easier said than done, you know?"

She sighed, a mildly exasperated smile on her face. "Just _try_ , Seaweed Brain."

o0O0o

I didn't die in the night. That was very surprising to wake up to. Though there was a ton of blood staining my covers. I probably ripped another stitch. Oops.

And there were two people, well ish, standing in front of me, one ruffling her red hair, the other staring through his big, round brown eye. "Brother? Are you alright?"

Tyson and Ella had been going on a trip around the states, according to some guide that Ella had essentially swallowed in that library. "We came as fast as we could. I tried to wake you up, but Ella said it was bad for healing."

Ella nodded earnestly. "Waking up patient is bad for healing."

Tyson gazed at me with his huge, brown eye. "Brother?"

I nodded. "Hey, buddy. How are you?"

Tyson burst into noisy tears. "I'm fine, brother. But you are not!" He buried his face in his hands and sniffled miserably.

I wanted to jump up and comfort him.

Only problem? That wasn't going to work. I couldn't really afford to kill myself trying to comfort Tyson.

Annabeth would storm all the way down the Hades to punch me for it, for one.

"Ty? Ty? _Ty?_ "

Tyson sniffed very loudly and lifted his head from his hands. "Brother?"

"Still here, Ty. Still here."

He sniffled again. "How are you, brother?"

I thought about it for a moment. "I'm alive, definitely. I mean, I feel like I've lost a fight with a shredder, but I'm alive. That's what counts, right?"

Tyson looked unbelievably miserable. "But brother… You are bleeding…"

Now that he pointed it out, the amount of blood on the sheets did appear to be, well, a lot.

Ella the harpy clucked nervously. "If patient is bleeding, you should call a doctor. Yes, yes, a doctor is needed." She turned her feathered head. "Will!"

The medic appeared after about twenty seconds. "What?" He glared at me, before his eyes fell down to my sheets. "Gods, what happened?"

I winced. "I think I might have ripped another stitch."

Will glanced at the calendar behind him (An Apollo Through the Seasons one; hmm, I wonder where they got it from?) and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I have some good news: You aren't going to die from ripping the stitch. However, you can't get back to school in time either."

"Why is that 'however'?" I asked. "Missing school's a good thing, right?"

Will sighed. "You'll just get behind, Percy. And besides, I've arranged for them to send you your timetable and all of your work so you don't fall too far behind."

My face fell. School was bad enough. But studying at home? No thanks.

"So how long will I have to stay out of school for?"

Will shrugged slightly. "I can't tell you exactly. It depends on how quickly you get out of this constantly-ripping-stitches phase. But, as school starts in two weeks, I'd say that you _could_ be back at school about two and a half weeks into the term. But if you keep going as you are, constantly ripping stitches and putting your recovery back, I'd say it'll be more like three or even four weeks off."

Six weeks to recover enough to go to school? That was a pretty long time. I was usually back on my feet three days after waking up, at maximum.

Will seemed to be able to tell what I was thinking, because he answered most of my questions with his next statement. "Look, Percy, you practically died. I don't know if Annabeth told you the details, but you've broken seven ribs and whatever oily stuff that Nyx used as her final attack has burned you like acid. You're not going to just jump out of bed in a few days and be perfectly fine. You're going to have to rest for a good long while and I want you to rest for even longer than you should so that when you do go back to school you're not going to aggravate anything. Clear?"

I sighed deeply. This was going to be a very long five or so weeks. "Crystal, sir."

Will scowled.

* * *

 **Well, look at that dodgy timeline! And oh look, here begins Part 4. If you're not a fan of prolonged storylines, here's a good thing: this is where we first drew up the final words of 'The End', but naturally, knowing us, we both had an existential crisis about what we were going to do after three years of devoting our lives to this fic and continued it.**

 **Don't forget to review!**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	52. Annabeth V

**AHermioneH lied last time. This last part is not** _ **all**_ **fluff. Just mostly.**

 **We (well, I) (** _ **no - us)**_ **decided to bring the story to an end by coming full circle with a school environment… So this is the first chapter set at the new school. (There is a TKC crossover, but it's not too (** _ **yes it is reallly**_ **) major.)**

 **It's quite short, but the next chapter is a bit longer (I think).**

 **So, BIG EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT. There are about five chapters left: we're on the home straight at last for this story! We're hoping to get them all up before school breaks up in two weeks (** _ **a week and half - AHermioneH)**_ **, so…**

 **StormSunfire (and AHermioneH when she can be bothered to post this chapter).**

* * *

Annabeth POV

Two weeks came and went, and soon I was staring the end-of-summer deadline in the face. Will still hadn't even let Percy out of the infirmary yet.

Unfortunately, I was expected at the new school that most of us from Goode House had been allocated to. Percy would be joining me there when he could, but I had to be responsible for checking that he had work to do and was actually doing it.

So I had to pack my things, sifting through the various random books in the Athena cabin and debating how many of them I could fit into my bag, and how many I would leave on the communal shelf (Athena children took good care of books; I didn't need to worry about the condition when I came back) in the cabin.

It was a tough decision, but my bag didn't have a magical compartment inside it, so I did have to leave some of the things that simply would not fit.

It was always fairly depressing, leaving camp for the year, but at least I knew that there was not an imminent threat from a deadly goddess. I mean, there were always threats, but now there weren't _that_ many.

I rushed out of the cabin and out to the border of the Camp, where the minibus was waiting to take the ten or so of us to Goode House. Or wherever we'd been assigned to, considering the school was not due to re-open.

I wondered what the school would be like. How many people from Goode House would be there.

Not many, I didn't imagine. It had taken a lot of strings-pulling to even make sure that Percy and I were together. This was going to be a nightmare. First we had to go to the old Goode High campus to be reassigned to various schools in the surrounding area and I was staying with Sally until the new schools found somewhere to use as a boarding house for the new students.

o0O0o

I had been assigned to Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted, a small high school in (guess where!) Brooklyn. It wasn't actually too far from Sally's apartment: I could walk there in twenty minutes.

I wondered briefly if that meant that Percy wouldn't board whenever they got the boarding system back up and running.

The uniform was dull, though.

Then I remembered that, yes, I had to get my 'map of campus' (yay!) and do the dumb orientation exercise before I got assigned a locker and my timetable (and Percy's. I think we'd managed to get them the same, except for electives) for the year.

The campus was a fairly big one, with lots of small greens and open spaces. It was quite pretty, really. The buildings were scattered randomly around. Probably an attempt to get some of the students to actually walk outside for a bit.

That was going to be fun when it rained. I made a mental note to buy an umbrella for school time.

The day came and went. I was bored stiff from filling out paperwork all day. My ADHD acted up so badly I had to go out and take a short run around campus (one of the few advantages: you mention it to a teacher; they blush, apologise and let you straight out. It's a great way to avoid the most boring classes).

The next day was not nearly so boring, but it was annoying to have to learn tons of new names again. I barely learnt any at Goode House. Names. Ugh.

I slammed my locker door shut as I crammed the books I needed for the day into my hands. And walked straight into a guy behind me.

"Woah!" he exclaimed, sounding slightly put out but not actually that cross. "Well, hello there. Are you new here?"

I turned and nodded. "Yeah, I am. Sorry for hitting you."

He smiled and leaned against the lockers. "So, do you need a guide for today?"

"Uhh, sure. I'm Annabeth, by the way."

"Julian." He held out his hand for a shake. I took it, slightly nervously.

He didn't really look old enough to be hitting on me. Maybe he was just genuinely a nice person.

"Right, I'd better find you someone then. I haven't a clue either." He grinned at my raised eyebrows. "Freshman," he said as way of explanation.

He led me through the crowd, scanning faces until we nearly collided with _Sadie_ , who smiled when she saw Julian.

"Hey, Julian," she said, clearly not noticing me. "Who's this- _Annabeth_?"

I smiled sheepishly. "Hi, Sadie."

Julian frowned. "So you guys already know each other?"

I grimaced as I tried to think of an explanation for _why_ we knew each other. "We met on the subway. A while back. Had a sort of, um, girly chat."

Sadie's hair was currently coloured with electric blue streaks, so Julian probably wouldn't believe that pile of tripe. But hey. It was better than the truth.

Julian raised an eyebrow. "Are you the weird Greek that Sadie met?"

Weird Greek? Maybe Julian _really_ knew Sadie. As in, knew that she was a magician. "Uh, yes. I am the weird Greek." I turned to glare at Sadie. "I thought we were keeping that quiet."

"You do realise Carter's a bit of a gossip, right?" I raised an eyebrow at her and she threw her hands down. "Fine! It was me!"

I nodded. "So, this is your school?"

"Yup."

I glanced at her feet. "And combat boots are standard?"

She glanced down. "No. But I'm an orphan, remember?"

I grinned. "So that's your get-out-of-jail-free card, then?"

She nodded. "And yours?"

I shrugged. "ADHD. Dyslexia, but that usually just means that the teachers hate you. PTSD in there, too. I say I feel uncomfortable with a topic and they practically kick me out."

Sadie shrugged. "Wait, you have PTSD?"

I nodded. "Well, that's what the therapist calls it."

Sadie looked like she had choked on something. Air, perhaps. " _You?_ A flippin' _therapist_?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Don't advertise it, though. But I _will_ miss tutor on a Thursday morning. So will Percy, when he gets back."

Sadie frowned. "Where is he anyway?"

"Recovering from a fight with _another_ primordial goddess."

It was Julian's turn to look like he'd choked on something. "What? _Another_?"

I nodded. "Yes, another. He's too good at annoying immortals."

Julian was looking at me like I'd grown a second head.

"Stop staring like that," I said flatly. "It's mildly frightening."

He blinked. "Sorry. But immortals, like plural?"

I nodded. "He fought the war god when he was twelve."

Julian's face twisted into shock and awe. "Holy Horus."

I laughed as we walked towards the classrooms. "That was how I reacted. I nearly punched him."

* * *

 **I've just checked the number of chapters after this one: 4 plus epilogue (I'm pretty sure. This document is kinda giant and a little glitchy.)**

 **So, if anyone has ideas for oneshots…? We need them. We're running out of material. And reviews are literally life so if you could drop us one that'd make us feel very loved.**

 **Anyway.**

 **StormSunfire (and AHermioneH, somewhere) (** _ **I'm here, you caudex)**_


	53. Percy VIII

**Happy New Year!**

 **Well that plan to post all of the chapters before Christmas failed. Whoo...**

 **I've just checked the number of chapters after this one: 4 plus epilogue (I'm pretty sure. This document is kinda giant and a little glitchy.)**

 **So, if anyone has ideas for oneshots…? We need them. We're running out of material. And reviews are literally life so if you could drop us one that'd make us feel very loved.**

 **Anyway.**

 **StormSunfire (and AHermioneH, somewhere) ( _I'm here, you caudex)_**

* * *

Percy POV

I was standing in the courtyard of my new school. At least I could say that I wasn't expelled from this one. Yet.

We had to wear uniform, which sucked. But it wasn't the worst uniform I'd ever worn by far.

That special title was still reserved for the Merriwether Prep gym kit.

But hey, I hadn't turned up four weeks late to Merriwether Prep, had I?

Will _had_ said that I probably shouldn't be at school. But he'd also said that I shouldn't miss more than was absolutely necessary.

So here I was. I had a note that excused me from PE class. And I would be fine. Provided nobody shoved me too hard against the lockers, that was.

I stared around the green patch and took in the artwork surrounding the school buildings.

Most of it was a little too, ah, _abstract_ , for my taste. Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted. I snorted. Brooklyn Academy for those that want to use clay to do whatever they want, more like. I froze as one of the pieces caught my eye. It was covered in hieroglyphs and was made of a material that I knew hadn't been created on campus. I frowned at the intricate patterns on the stone, before making a mental note to talk to Carter about it later.

Hey, he lived in Brooklyn, right?

Gods, if _he_ went to this school, I wasn't going to get the quiet and peaceful year that I very much needed.

Anyway, I was going off track.

I crossed the courtyard to the building with a label on it that probably said 'Office'. I had way too much practice with this whole new-school malarky. The office was in a small, squat, grey building perched haphazardly in the corner of the green. I knocked on the door fairly loudly, looking through the small window. There was an equally small lady in there, who looked about as cheerful as the deçor.

She glanced up as I knocked and gave a small waving gesture. I took that as an invitation and opened the door. Office Lady glanced down at her notes. "Perseus Jackson, is it?" she asked in a voice that sounded oddly like dry leaves rustling together.

I grimaced slightly at the use of my full name. "Percy, yes."

She looked down at her notes again. "Oh, yes. It's mentioned here. Would you like me to write a note to the admin staff to make sure that it's 'Percy' on the register?"

I nodded gratefully. "Yes, please. Nobody uses my full name."

She nodded slightly, tapping slowly at a computer now. Eventually she looked up from the computer and gave what was probably supposed to be a welcoming smile. "Well, welcome to the Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted then, Percy. I trust that you have a map of campus and your timetable?"

I rummaged for a second in my bag and pulled them out. "Yep."

"Alright, then. You just need to go out through the door that you came in and turn right to find the main block. Then you take the first left as you go in and follow it around to get to your locker. Do you have the number?"

I un-scrunched a scrap of paper that had taken up residence in the bottom of my bag.

"Yeah. I think this is it."

She nodded, before ploughing on. "You keep following the corridor around to get to your tutor room. I'm sure someone in your class can direct you for your lessons. Have a nice day."

I assumed that was my dismissal, so turned and left.

I pulled my map out of my bag and tried to decipher what the writing said. Just follow the corridor of the main building. That's helpful.

At least it wasn't quite the freaking maze that a lot of schools are. I wandered my way over to what I assumed was the main building and stepped inside my personal hell for the next year. I hurried through the corridors, carefully keeping an eye on the locker numbers to make sure I didn't miss mine.

I found it. Eventually.

Annabeth was stood at a nearby locker (which I assumed was her own). She'd left for school earlier, claiming that she needed to print some work and didn't want to use up our ink at home (Mum had finally bought a printer after she started writing her book).

She'd clearly had an _ink_ ling (haha) that I was going to do something stupid today, considering that she'd taken the time to tell me to take it easy today.

But still. She probably _hadn't_ bargained on me coming back to school a whole week before Will had recommended.

She currently had her back very pointedly turned to a tall boy with brown hair which contained so much gel it was a miracle that he could still hold his head up with all of the extra weight.

I opened my locker, stowing away the heaviest of the books that I wasn't going to need until later in the day. Plus, having my locker open was an excellent reason for me to be standing there and watching as Annabeth rejected this boy.

Which she was definitely doing. Unfortunately, Gel Head hadn't yet got the memo.

I caught snippets of their conversation, especially as Annabeth's voice began to rise in volume with annoyance. "Look, I _have_ a boyfriend! Can't you accept that and find some other girl to bother instead?"

Gel Head said something back, probably along the lines of ' _I don't believe you_ '.

Maybe this was a good time to step in before a mortal got murdered.

I leaned forward and tapped Gel Head on the shoulder. "Hey, you _might_ not want to do that. She looks kinda angry."

Gel Head turned.

Gods forbid, but he was clearly _popular_. He gazed back at me, looking kind of bored. "And who are you? I haven't seen you before. Besides, you're too scrawny to take on me." This was followed by something much like ' _Go away_ ', only somewhat ruder.

I winced. "Look, don't comment on my weight. That's rude. Especially as I can take you on any day of the week. Any day of a _normal_ week," I amended.

He rolled his eyes as I said this. Fine, it was probably not true, either. It was _usually_ true.

But it wasn't my fault that I was a little worse for wear after a second impromptu trip to Hell, was it? "And as to who I am? I'd be Annabeth's boyfriend. Yeah, the one who you said doesn't exist. Please leave her alone before she turns and kills you."

He sneered in my direction.

I punched in his.

He fell against the locker next to Annabeth's. Hey, not that hard. He didn't deny it or anything interesting.

"Percy!" Annabeth's scolding voice rang through the corridor. "I thought we agreed on no expulsions until _December_ , at least."

I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand and flexed the other: the one which I'd hit him with. It didn't hurt. "Sorry, but he was annoying me. Look, I didn't even hit him that hard. If I had, I'd have busted my ribs again. Look: not even a red mark on my knuckles."

Gel Head took his time getting up. His nose didn't even look bruised, much less broken. No blood, or anything. That was good: no evidence, no expulsion.

He stood up, face darkening with rage.

Oops. "Look, I really shouldn't be getting into a fight on my first day. Besides, I'll probably fall unconscious or something. I _am_ still recovering after that escaped lion attack at the end of last year and-"

He stormed forwards and took a heavy-handed swipe at me.

I hobbled backwards into the lockers, cursing my still-weak leg.

Annabeth gave a cry. "Stop it! He is in _no_ condition to be fighting you! I told you that I had a boyfriend and now you're going to beat him up because he appeared? Find someone to fight that might leave with just bruises, why don't you?"

Gel Head turned to her and gave a sneer. "Stay out of this, Sunshine."

He swung again at me in fury.

I ducked.

His fist slammed into the lockers with an unpleasant crunch.

He howled and kneed me in the stomach.

Ouch. The breath whooshed from my lungs in a painful fashion. The scabbed wound in my stomach stretched painfully, but didn't give.

Hey, that was a bonus. Sort of.

Gel Head lunged for me again in with a sort of flying tackle, sending me back into the lockers with a resounding crash.

"Ouch," I squeaked. "Look, can't we, like, _talk_ or something?"

He swung a fist at my face. I took that as a no.

I dodged the fist, grabbing it as it flew past my head and yanking him forwards.

He face-planted the lockers. That was rather satisfying.

I hobbled out of kicking range, one hand gingerly over my stomach. If he hit me there again, it would probably bleed.

Gelly unpeeled himself from the lockers and lunged again.

It was irritating. On any usual day, I'd have beaten him without breaking a sweat. But, this wasn't any normal day. Ugh.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me back against the lockers. Twice.

I gestured feebly to the hand that was digging into my right shoulder. "Could you loosen the pressure on that one a little? I've got a really deep cut that's still healing and you're going to rip it open."

He continued to crush my shoulders. His thumbnail was literally digging right into the wound, so I have to admit that I wasn't that surprised when I felt the scab give way completely and blood began to trickle from the wound again.

Hey, it'd always been the nastiest one.

I hissed in pain and kicked his legs from under him with my good leg.

He fell away with a muffled curse.

I limped away from the lockers slightly, one hand going automatically to my shoulder.

I heard Annabeth swear under her breath.

I turned to look at her, mouthing one word. _Help_.

She nodded wordlessly, then turned and sprinted off down the corridor. Hopefully searching for a guy that could deck this irritating twerp that was currently trying to kill me.

Gel Head got slowly to his feet, glaring at me with hot fury.

I gave him my wolf stare back.

He flinched slightly. Good.

Less good? It didn't stop him from storming over and swinging his fist at me again.

I managed to dodge slightly, but he still struck me a glancing blow to the side. Luckily, it didn't appear to be bad enough to re-break any ribs.

I was already going to have to take more days off if Will got wind of this.

He seized me by the shoulders again and shook me hard enough to make my teeth rattle. I let out a stifled cry of pain at the pressure on the wound.

"See?" he snarled. "You're pathetic."

"It's not nice to take advantage of someone's injuries in a fight, you know," I shot back through tightly gritted teeth.

There was a dull thundering of feet behind me.

Excellent. It was either the teachers, coming to expel us both, or Annabeth and a friend of hers.

It was the latter, thank the gods.

Suddenly Gel Head was seized from behind by a powerful-looking guy, who quickly had him in a headlock and was telling him something in hushed tones. Probably ' _Leave before I kill you'_ , considering the speed at which he legged it when he was released.

I sighed deeply, then turned to look at Annabeth, who was standing at my side, looking concerned.

I waved her off, rummaging in my bag for the bandages that I had packed (just in case), and heading towards the bathroom to sort myself out in time for class.

o0O0o

When I left the bathroom, the meaty guy that had broken up the fight was waiting next to the entrance. Annabeth had probably told him to take care of me on pain of death, considering that she couldn't go into the boy's bathroom.

He grabbed my shirt as soon as he was within reach and frowned down at my battered face. " _You're_ Percy Jackson?"

"Uhh, yes?" It came out as a question.

He let go of me. "Huh. Thought you'd be a little more _intimidating_ , considering how much the Kanes go on about you and your powers."

"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not really on form at the moment."

He snorted. "Yeah, I can tell _that_ much. You wouldn't win a fight against a gecko at the moment, much less a Son of Sobek."

Something clicked. This dude was a magician, then?

I shrugged slightly, then regretted it as my newly bandaged shoulder gave a wash of agony in protest.

It must've shown on my face, because the magician-dude raised an eyebrow at me. "You should totally not be in school at the moment, should you?"

I had the grace to look a little bit guilty. "Not really. I was told to take at least another half-week off, but I was bored and didn't want to fall behind _that_ massively. I'm enough of an idiot as it is."

The guy shrugged. "From what I've heard from Nico, you're actually quite smart."

"Nico? He's got friends now? With people from _yet another_ pantheon? Are you actually kidding me?"

He shook his head. "Not at all." He stuck out his hand for a shake. "I'm Walt."

I shook his hand carefully.

"Percy, but you already knew that."

We stood there for a few seconds until the awkwardness was cringeworthy.

"Well, we'd best be headed off to class, right?" I asked.

He nodded. "It's only tutor. I think you're in the same as me. I'll show you the way." He just started to walk, when he suddenly turned. "Wait. How did you get the blood out of your shirt? I can never do it."

I smiled. "Water powers, dude."

He sighed. "No magic detergent, then."

I shook my head.

"Shame." We started walking down the corridor. "Didn't you host Nekhbet?"

"Yeah, a while back. Not really planning on doing it again." I shuddered at the thought.

Walt smiled slightly. "I get you. But I swear that it's impossible to completely un-host a god?"

I shrugged, again hissing at the pain in my shoulder. _Remember, you idiot! Shrugging is bad!_ "I'm good at creating special circumstances for myself."

"That I can agree on."

I frowned at him. "Did Nico tell you everything then, or just some of what happened?"

Walt flicked a wrist in my direction. "Let's just say that I have some good friends that check up on your progress with saving the world every now and then."

Was it just me, or did something in his eyes flicker weirdly as he said that? It still _sounded_ like the same guy, but something about him didn't seem quite normal, but I couldn't put my finger on it. As in, something was weirder than the fact that he was a magician.

"So, which god are you hosting?" I tried to sound casual, to the point where it was painfully so.

Walt frowned slightly. "It's not quite the same as _hosting_ , I guess. It's more of a merging of souls, really. But that's only if you want to be pedantic."

I stared at him. "You haven't answered my question."

"Anubis."

"That's pretty impressive." I paused. "Which god is he again? Like, he must be major because I've actually heard of him."

He frowned down at me. "For somebody whose life revolves around it, you don't know much about mythology, do you?"

"Nope. Besides, I'm Greek. Learning all of just _those_ myths takes long enough."

"Well, you clearly have a lot to learn." Walt swallowed. "He's sort of the god of death. Well, he's more like the judge of the souls of the dead. So Anubis leads you to the Hall of Judgement and weighs your heart and stuff. He's the jackal-headed god. Statues of him are often found in tombs. That kind of thing."

I didn't shrug this time, stopping myself just before I did and regretted it. "That is pretty cool."

Walt shook his head, smiling faintly. "I didn't really have a choice. It was that or die."

I blinked. "Oh."

"I guess. It's okay now, though. Just an old family curse. Nothing to worry about, really."

That didn't sound like something not to worry about, but I (metaphorically) shrugged off this thought. "Right."

We stopped outside a door that looked no different from the doors to all of the other classrooms down the corridor. "Well, this is the right room. I don't _think_ we're late," Walt said, bobbing his head up and down a little to look around the room through the small window in the door. "Eh, we'd best just go in, anyway."

He turned the handle and pushed the door open. I followed him into my new class.

A few heads turned. A few people muttered about 'who?'.

But the teacher hadn't arrived yet.

Excellent. No detention on day 1.

Yet.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading and reviewing! See you next time!**


	54. Annabeth VI

**Whoa! Two chapters in one day? What a shock?**

 **(The first one was meant to be posted on like the 12th of December or something stupid like that.)**

 **We are back from our school holidays, and may actually start posting again? Wow.**

 **Anyway. Brief TW for panic attack (note that this was not researched and is fictional, for fictional characters and pretty damn dodgy overall. Please don't flame us for it: this is a disclaimer.)**

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 **Jiggly Joe (Guest) - Thank you so much for your insightful comments about our fic. We** _ **loved**_ **every second of reading them and it gave us sooo much joy to see that you hated all of them with such a passion. If you'd read our author's note at the beginning, you would have seen that it was listed as a cliche fic and that it was really weird, but we'd kind of forgotten about that part of the story as we are fifty chapters on from when you stopped reading. And we're sorry that you didn't like the way that we handled the plot and characters, and that it wasn't the way you wanted. Please, if you decide to read on in order to flame us, feel free to rewrite the fic as you would like it (the doc is currently 256 pages and 97,000 words).**

* * *

Annabeth POV

Percy burst in through the door closely followed by Sadie's boyfriend, Walt. They looked sort of awkward. But hey. Awkward was better than dead.

They sat down in the two remaining unoccupied seats in the room: next to me and next to Sadie. I was just beginning to reprimand Percy about how he should've been _more careful_ and all that, but the teacher walked in and the class fell hurriedly silent.

Aforementioned teacher was called Mrs Hewitt. She was stick-thin, had grey hair that was pulled so tightly into a bun, it was a miracle that it was still on her head, and looked for all the world like she was permanently sucking a lemon.

None of us would want to get on the wrong side of her.

Which sucks, because that is almost certainly what Percy would do.

She pulled a register out of her bag and flipped it open.

"Isaac Abbott."

"Here."

"Lila Burgess."

"Here."

"Annabeth Chase."

"Here." My voice rang through the room.

She went on in the same monotone until she hit Percy.

"Perseus Jackson."

"Percy. The lady in the office said-"

Mrs Hewitt cut him off. "Perseus Jackson, are you here? It is a yes or no question, so answer it."

Percy sighed. "Here." Then buried his head into his arms, no doubt falling asleep already. Or dying of embarrassment. One or the other.

Snickers rang out across the classroom.

Mrs Hewitt glared. "Be quiet!" she snapped.

They shut up.

She droned on for a bit longer, calling out everybody's names. When she was finished, she cleared her throat pointedly, glaring at Percy.

I elbowed him in the ribs. Gently, of course. I didn't want to hurt him. Too much, at least.

He lifted his head from the desk. "Yes?"

Mrs Hewitt stiffened even more at the comment. Oh, come _on_. He wasn't _trying_ to be rude.

"Mr Jackson."

Percy nodded. "That _is_ my name."

Mrs Hewitt looked like she might explode, and restrained herself with an effort. "Why on _Earth_ have you not been at school these past weeks? And when you finally _do_ show up, you have the nerve to pretend to sleep on your desk!"

Percy sighed. "I came from Goode House; the school that closed because of an attack from some escaped zoo animals. Well, it's taken me an _awfully long time_ to recover from injuries that I sustained during that incident. And _now_ I've helpfully been thrown against the lockers and had an old wound reopened, which is why I'm feeling quite so drained this early in the morning."

Mrs Hewitt looked like the definition of _unimpressed_. "First, you don't come to school for _weeks_ , and then you have the _cheek_ to tell me that ridiculous lie?"

Percy blinked very slowly, looking worn out from his two-second argument. "I'm not lying."

"Only two people were injured during the attack. One who suffered from fatal injuries and the other who was given leave from school for a while. I also think that he was allocated a different school. I'm not sure, considering he has leave. _I_ don't even know where he _is_."

Percy coughed. " _He_ is here. And injured."

Mrs Hewitt frowned.

Percy held up his hands. "Look! I can give you proof!" He stood up and started to pull up his shirt to reveal the gashes across his chest. I swear I heard someone sigh in the background at his muscles though. _Geez, how shallow can you get?_

Walt and Sadie both flinched beside me at the sight, while I think someone in the back row choked on whatever they were eating.

I guess it did still look pretty bad.

At least it made Mrs Hewitt fall silent. She had the grace to look at least a _little_ sheepish.

Percy let his shirt fall again and sat down slowly, a strange look in his eyes. Something that made him look a little bit like a cornered animal. Then it hit me: he was worried that people would judge him badly for it.

I grabbed his hand under the desk and squeezed it reassuringly. He gave a small half-smile in response.

Mrs Hewitt made a small sound a little like a cat choking on a hairball. "I am most dreadfully sorry, Mr Jackson. I didn't realise-"

Percy cut her off. "Don't worry about it. I should've expected it, really."

His eyes were slightly glazed, clearly only partially seeing what was in front of him.

I didn't let go of his hand until the fog lifted from his gaze and he blinked slowly, putting his head back onto the desk and mumbling something about being tired.

Strangely, Miss Hewitt let him.

o0O0o

The day passed so slowly it was almost as if Kronos himself was slowing time. Percy struggled through his classes, but almost all of the teachers were understanding and nice to him. He survived until last period, which was Maths.

All of the other teachers had been understanding and kind. But _no_. All except the Maths teacher, who didn't seem to know or care how bad Percy was feeling and ignored all of his polite requests to have something explained, or his final request, which was to leave the classroom for a breather as he wasn't feeling well.

I figured that it was time to step in, so stood up, grabbed Percy's arm and walked him from the classroom, telling the teacher firmly that Percy wasn't well and needed a moment, and _no_ , we were not going to go back to our seats and sit down again.

I led him out into the quad and together we plonked down onto the grass. It was a good job that it was sunny and the dew had evaporated, else we'd have both got wet.

"Percy?"

"Not good."

That much was fairly obvious. Percy was ghostly pale and hunched over, arms wrapped around his knees. His eyes gazed into a world that I couldn't see.

"How bad?" If he was going to have a flashback, I just hoped that it wasn't going to be on the worse end of the spectrum.

"Really bad."

Gods, no. "Percy?"

"I'm trying, Annabeth. I'm not sure it'll work, but I'm trying." He closed his eyes tightly and took a deep, shuddering breath. He exhaled through gritted teeth, opening his eyes again. He shook his head. "I don't think I can stop it, Annabeth."

I placed my hand on his shoulder again. "Breathe in: one, two, three. Breathe out: one, two, three."

Percy's eyes completely shut and he collapsed onto the ground.

I let out a string of filthy curse words in three languages (thank you, Jason, for teaching all of us Greeks to swear in Latin).

Percy's hands started to shake like a leaf as the rest of his body started spasming.

Number one on the list of reasons as to why I prefer audio flashbacks or momentary visual ones to full blown panic attacks.

The hyperventilating became louder in my ears as I tried to stop Percy from swallowing his own tongue.

A rolling crash cannoned over my ears, which felt hypersensitive. The sound caused flash spots to appear in my vision, it felt so loud.

It took me until after it had stopped and my ears had stopped ringing to realise that it had in fact been the end-of-class bell.

Panic rose up within me as I realised how weird it would look to every other student in this school. Two new kids sitting in the middle of a quad, and one is passed out and having a seizure. Sure, that's going to make us look completely normal.

But it wasn't like I could just shake Percy and he'd be fine. This looked like one of the worst flashbacks that he'd ever suffered, and that was saying a lot.

My brain went into overdrive as I separated myself a section of concentration that I couldn't really spare to compose what I would say, and how I would say it.

Nothing really stuck, though. _Don't just stand there like that! My boyfriend suffers from PTSD and is having a flashback. Go find someone with first aid training!_

Nope, that wasn't going to work.

Maybe I could just shriek ' _HELP ME, YOU IDIOT!'_ and watch them stare in horror and bolt off as quickly as possible.

That would make me look positively unhinged, though.

Hmm. I couldn't really concentrate enough on this, though, considering that I was also trying to prevent Percy from killing himself by accident, and that took up almost all of my concentration. Strange, that.

I did my best to steel myself as the sound of feet pounding on the grass reached my ears.

A pair of combat boots appeared in my field of vision.

"Holy Horus. Annabeth?"

I could've cried. _Sadie_.

"You can't help. But could you think of a good reason to keep people away from here? I don't really want to have to answer all of their questions, because I won't be able to give them satisfactory answers."

"Walt's got first aid training."

"Then help me. I have basic first aid, too, and I _know_ what to do with someone having an epileptic fit and this has happened before but _still_."

Walt didn't react to my outburst and helped me to hold Percy steady(-er) until he stopped thrashing around quite so much. Thanks to Walt, I'd escaped this time without getting clocked around the head by Percy's thrashing limbs.

Sadie stood at the entrance to the quad and spouted some nonsense about it being slippery or something. I wasn't really listening.

Somebody was standing and arguing with Sadie about something. Fortunately, Sadie was good at arguing ,so they weren't getting anywhere.

I started to listen, curious.

"Look, I have both his and Annabeth's stuff with me right now. I'm a friend of Percy's and, oh, just please let me through. This is getting really boring."

Danny?

I decided to intervene, gently standing up (leaving Walt with Percy, who was still in the flashback but not thrashing around anymore) and heading over.

"Danny?"

"Annabeth, hi. I got your stuff."

He held out our two bags, which had all of our things crammed into them.

I took them from him and thanked him, then let him head off. He was clearly in a hurry.

I took our stuff back and set it down on the grass, leaving Sadie to fend off any people who were late from class and wanted to cut through the quad.

As I turned back to Percy, he groaned and was leaning against his elbows. He squinted. "Was that Danny?"

"Yep." I shoved his duffel bag into his arms. "Find somewhere to put that until we get home tonight."

"You're saying I have to, like, get up and walk? 'Cause I'm not sure that's gonna happen." He frowned down at the bag in his arms.

"You have to get up and walk. Can you?"

Percy looked a little pensive. "How about no?"

"Look, you can't exactly just sit there."

"I'm telling you that I will not be able to walk, though."

We were interrupted by one of the teachers hurrying over. He was clearly the first to notice that, yes, a student was lying on the floor and looking ill. Round of applause to you, Mr Teacher. He tucked the folders he was carrying under his arm and leaned down to talk to Percy. "Are you alright?"

He actually sounded like he cared. Surprising, especially since most teachers disliked Percy quite strongly.

Percy groaned in response. "I had a panic attack and couldn't make it to the nurse's office in time."

The teacher looked mildly alarmed at the flatness of Percy's tone. Okay, to be fair to him, most people would probably be sobbing on the ground after a panic attack. Percy had had too many for that kind of response. "Do you need help making your way there, then?"

Percy sat up on his knees. "I think I'll be fine, thanks."

The teacher frowned again. "You're new here, aren't you? One of the kids from the animal attacks, right?"

Percy nodded. "Yeah, I am."

"So, do you even know where the nurse's room is?"

Percy shook his head. "I've got a map, though. And, really, thanks, but I don't think that going to the nurse's room is going to be very helpful." He flapped his arm nonchalantly. "It's just a routine panic attack. But worse than usual. Seriously, there's nothing they could do."

The teacher pushed his glasses up his nose. "Any panic attack being routine is worrying. Do you think that you should see someone about them?"

Percy nodded. "I do. I go to the therapist every Wednesday. Or Thursday. I can't remember when it was rescheduled to recently, actually."

A bell went off across the courtyard. "Look -" the teacher grabbed a pen and scribbled something onto a piece of paper. "- I'm Mr Marrison and come and see me at any time." He rushed off again, leaving us behind as he strode away.

I turned to Percy again, who was commenting dryly on the awkwardness of the exchange to Walt.

"Percy? We really need to, like, probably go now." I cringed inwardly at the sentence. If it could be called that with the grammar in quite such a state. (Hey, I was a bit frazzled!)

Percy nodded. "Okay."

Percy eventually got to his feet with a considerable amount of help from me and Walt. I had both mine and his bags, upon seeing that he could barely stand, let alone carry his schoolbag and actually walk. Sadie led the way, clearing the corridors for Percy to hobble through. Not that there were many people still in the corridors.

I pulled my timetable out of my bag. "End of the day. You signed up for the swim club, right?" I stared at Percy. "You have to tell the coach that you're not well, okay?"

"I can't swim for at least another two or three weeks anyway," he muttered. "The coach knows."

"How in Hades do you think that you're going to get home? It's a twenty-minute walk. You look like you'll keel over after twenty more _steps_."

Percy looked a little confused, mind working very slowly. "Do you have your phone? I could call my mum, I guess."

I fished my phone out of my pocket and handed it over to Percy, who immediately hit the first 'call in case of emergency' contact. "Hey Mum! Yeah, can Paul pick us up? Because I'm feeling a bit ill and you know how I can't go to swim club. Thanks, bye!"

He hung up before his mum could infer anything from his tone of voice.

* * *

 **Right, so that's all for today. I think that it's pretty much all of the real angst in this story over now…? That's not saying that it's all fluff from here, but it is definitely fluffy-er.**

 **Also with the English spellings - we have become very bitter about Harry Potter fics being spelt in an American style, so we have decided to spell in an English style. Because we are very bitter and salty.**

 **Reviews are nice. They let us know that people are actually reading our story.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	55. Sadie I

**Hey guys! We are (surprisingly) back. We know that we** _ **said**_ **that we were trying to get this fic up by Christmas, but hey. Oops. Sorry. But hi; we're still alive and soldiering through the last two (?) chapters before the epilogue.**

 **In our defence, we had a History test (which we both flunked, btw).**

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* * *

Sadie POV

I'm not going to pretend that I understand what Percy and Annabeth went through when they were in Greek Hell. Honestly, I really don't want to know. If it can mess up a guy who's saved the world a couple of times, it will probably mess me up just hearing about it.

But anyway. I took it upon myself to be as helpful as possible. Of course, this meant _not very_ , but I wanted to show them that I was at least trying.

I wasn't going all sappy, though.

That was just _not_ going to happen.

Long story short, I just stood there awkwardly while Percy was collapsed on the ground.

That was embarrassing, to say the least.

But I just didn't know what I could do to help. Pat him on the back? Stop him from biting his tongue? That's what we were taught in that one brief first aid lesson in year 7. It's a lot harder to apply to situations when it's someone you know.

Plus, major flashbacks isn't something that really comes up in foundation first aid.

Epilepsy, perhaps. But this wasn't that.

So I stood awkwardly and looked after the bags.

After Percy and Annabeth left, Walt and I walked back to Brooklyn House together and thought about Percy's attack. I bit my lip. "Do you know what happened to them _down there_?"

Walt-Anubis shrugged. "Not much. Rumours among the gods have suggested things, but they all seem too vile to be true." Definitely Anubis speaking there.

"Define _vile_."

"As in the sort of experience that would completely destroy somebody's sanity." Walt shoved his hands in his pockets as we rounded the corner to the entrance of Brooklyn house. I opened the door and we walked in.

It was as chaotic as usual inside. Julian was running after a herd of penguins and Felix. Alyssa was sitting at one of the desks, modeling clay with her weird earth telekinesis. Cleo and Carter were sitting at a desk that had been shoved into one corner or the room. Cleo was calling on _shabti_ to help her organise and label books, while Carter was furiously fiddling with another _shabti_ which looked suspiciously like it had been half-melted.

Carter glanced up as we walked in. "How was school?"

I made a face. "Well, Percy came back. But he definitely shouldn't have been there and the day ended with him having a major panic attack slash flashback."

"Oh." Carter neglected his _shabti_ for a moment and accidentally squashed a part of it. He swore in a complaintive manner, then handed the half-formed clay man to Cleo with a quiet request. Probably ' _please fix this, I am useless'_.

Then he stood up and made his way over to where we were standing. "That sounds serious," he noted. Yes, Captain Obvious.

"It was."

He nodded thoughtfully. "Have you got any thoughts on where we're going to go from here with Brooklyn House?"

"No. I was a _little_ preoccupied with somebody I know having a panic attack."

Carter lifted his hands in defence. "Alright, alright! I was just wondering. I did ask you to think about it!"

"And I haven't yet. Sorry, brother dearest." We were drawn away from our conversation by the sound of smashing and Shelby running in our direction, looking a little upset.

Carter sighed. "I'll deal with it." He went over to Shelby, bent down, asked her what was wrong, the works.

Ugh. Children.

Walt and I headed up towards the balcony, where we watched Philip (of Macedonia) splash idly in the pool.

"Are you sure that none of those rumours among the gods are true?" I asked Walt suddenly, turning to face him.

He exhaled deeply. "I hope they're not. For Percy and Annabeth's sakes. Honestly, Sadie, some of the stories… If they're true, it's a miracle that they survived. It's a miracle they're still sane."

I nodded. "But what _were_ the rumours?"

He shuddered again, but just turned away to look out onto the rest of New York. "They faced these curse creatures, _arai_ , they feed off of the final curses released by the slain. When they themselves are killed, they release a curse placed upon the killer. They survived, which is a miracle in itself. And that wasn't even the half of what happened to them." He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "Percy and Annabeth are the most famous demigods of all time. Percy alone has done more than Heracles. They had so many curses placed upon them throughout their adventures; according to Hermes, Percy nearly died from the stress that they caused him."

"Stress? If I was cursed by people who hated me, I'd probably die from injury."

"Shot through the sides of his chest with an arrow; Annabeth went blind and thought he'd abandoned her; ended up swallowing gorgon's blood. The poisonous kind. It wasn't good.

"And that wasn't the worst of it." A hand snuck out of its accompanying pocket to grip the edge of the balcony. "They battled various Titans, some of which they'd killed before; Nyx, the embodiment of the night and darkness, who actually battled them last year for a while and Tartarus."

My eyebrows furrowed. "Isn't that where they were?"

Walt nodded darkly. "Yep. First demigods to even glimpse him, let alone fight him. No one knows how they survived."

"Luck?"

Walt shook his head. "You don't get _lucky_ when facing the embodiment of the worst thing that exists in the Greek Pantheon."

I shrugged slightly. "Skill?"

"Not even the gods could win that battle."

"Friends?"

Walt, or rather Anubis at this stage, looked a little pensive. "That _is_ a rumour. That they were helped by a Titan. And a giant, according to some of the more fanciful stories. Who died to get the two of them out. It's illogical: Titans and giants _hate_ demigods. But it is the only thing that seems to answer the question of how they survived."

"So, basically, they've done the impossible. What else is new?"

* * *

 **I forgot that we'd chucked in a Sadie Chapter. Did we drag our own island nation halfway through? Yes. Do we regret it? No.**

 **Complete with unnecessary angst. Anyway. Heads up for a second chapter today.**

 **AHermioneH and StormSunfire**


	56. Percy IX

**Right, so second chapter for the day. I guess I'd (StormSunfire) better take over here briefly, given that I'm responsible for the mess that is the second half of this chapter. Small heads up to you guys: it's got a lot of obscure and niche-y swimmer lingo in it. I'll include a small glossary at the bottom for the most weird terms, but if you don't understand something, it's just unnecessary and random detail about swimming.**

 **Anyway, enjoy (I say, worriedly).**

 **Anyway, big announcement. THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER MINUS THE EPILOGUE!**

 **StormSunfire (and credit to AHermioneH, I guess. This is her account, after all).**

* * *

Percy POV

I was ever so slightly surprised to see Sadie running up to Annabeth and me the next week (when I _finally_ went back to school properly). She grabbed our arms and dragged us over to the trees of the quad. "What does Walt mean when he says you went to Hell?"

"Oh."

"Schist."

Walt shrugged apologetically behind her as he followed us to where we were dragged.

"Well, _if Walt told you_ -" I glared in his direction. "- I'm sure you know what happened to us down there. And believe me, I don't like to talk about it. You may have noticed last week that it is something that has had rather nasty effects on my mind. On _our_ minds." I shot a glance in Annabeth's direction. She nodded approvingly.

Score. For once, my girlfriend wasn't about to kill me.

Sadie clearly did not understand the concept of _sensitive topic_ (maybe it's something to do with being British? Does that affect people's minds? Make them nosy?) "So did you really face the embodiment of Hell?"

I gritted my teeth. "Yes."

" _Yes_? Is that all you're going to say?"

"I _really_ don't want to collapse and have another fit about it for the second time in as many days at this school."

"Can't you at least say a little bit more than just 'yes', though?"

Walt grabbed her arm. "Maybe you should stop asking. It's pretty clear that he doesn't want to talk about it."

I shook my head. "It okay. I get that you want to know."

Annabeth didn't look quite as approving, now. Oh well. Runaway train on a broken track and all that jazz.

"I'm only going to say one thing: Burnt M&Ms saved us."

"What? What?"

"Oh, and the god of the Pit was seriously creepy and got beaten up by a cat up the tunic."

"Okay, _what_?"

I held up my hands. "That's all I'm going to say. Push all you like. You'll just get walloped if you're annoying enough."

o0O0o

I somehow managed to make it through the day. Somehow. Go, Percy!

So, now, I was stuck in a stinky swimming pool changing room, getting ready to go to swim club for the first time in the year.

I was not expecting to be good.

Believe it or not, I actually trained in a mortal way to be a good swimmer at Goode House.

The monster attacks happened a week before I was due to go to a national competition. I never told the others (apart from Annabeth, naturally), knowing full well that it would only give them something else to worry about, when they already had enough to worry about.

But that was months ago, and I hadn't been in a pool since.

Not to mention the whole almost-dying thing.

So I was going to show my face and actually get a few lengths in. I'd build it up from there.

Maybe I'd go to the national competition at the end of this year, instead.

Probably not. It was going to take a lot of training to get up to even club standard again.

But hey. I was going to try.

As a burly coach walked in and leaned against the wall, I froze. Nope, that was not JD Farringdon. I am not having him for a coach.

"Move on through, boys! Let's get swim practice started!"

As I got up to follow the others through, Farringdon held his arm out in front of me. "I didn't connect the fact that my new kid, Perseus Jackson, was the same Percy Jackson that won regionals* last year and then dropped out of the competition. I hope the same thing doesn't happen."

I pulled a face. "A lot happened over the summer. I haven't swum since two weeks before I was due to go to nationals. I'm going to be very, very slow. And incredibly unfit."

The coach raised an eyebrow. "Why _did_ you drop out?"

I sighed. "Did you hear about the escaped animal attacks at Court House school?"

He nodded slowly, putting it together with the fresh scars over my chest. "So, you're still recovering from injury?"

"You could put it that way, if you liked."

He slapped me on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. I nearly fell over. "Well, you can just use the training pool today, then, Jackson. We need you back in the water and on that swim team if we're going to have a hope at the school championships this year!" He then suddenly realised that I didn't know how the team worked. He led me out onto poolside. "So, we have ten people in our senior team: there are tryouts at the start of the year and I adjust the team and shift people in and out three times a semester. This is the open training session. Once you're good enough, you can come to the open club sessions. When you make the team, there's squad training as well. For today you can do your own thing in the training pool. You can look at the set**, but don't feel that you have to do anything that will push you too far."

I practically zoned out at _training pool_. I'd never trained at a complex with two separate 25m pools before. I mean, one was only a metre and a half deep and three lanes wide, but _still_. The only time I'd seen a complex to rival it before had been at regionals.

My vision tunnelled when I saw the blocks on the main pool.

They had _Olympic blocks***. Full height blocks with blue sandpaper-y grip and moveable backboards and a step on the side because they were too high to be feasibly able to climb on over the top._

That was so exciting.

I voiced this. "You have Olympic blocks?"

The coach grinned. "The pool was renovated a couple of years ago, and they put in all of these amazing features. Hopefully we'll get you back into that pool," he gestured to the eight-lane main pool, "pretty soon. We'll see, shall we?"

I nodded, before heading over to the training pool. A few of the other people at training gave me a few odd looks, but nobody said anything.

I almost laughed as I watched one of the girls flap her hand at a friend, gesturing with her free hand to her hat, which was on top of the blocks. Her other hand was holding her copious amount of hair firmly to her head. Her friend grabbed the hat and pulled it on, completely covering the girl's eyes with it. She shrieked and pulled the hat off, before finding someone else to help her.

The coach strode past them to the whiteboard at the far side of the pool, grabbing a blue pen and writing the warm-up onto the board. I squinted at it. It had been written in a tight scrawl with a narrow-nibbed blue pen, and I couldn't quite read it.

I didn't miss what the coach bellowed in his coach-voice, though.

"TWO HUNDRED FREESTYLE-BACK. I'M BEING NICE TO YOU TODAY, SO I WANT TO SEE YOU MAKING FIVE**** FROM EVERY WALL, DO YOU HEAR ME? ON **THIS** TOP*****!"

Eyes swivelled from the coach to the sports clock on the wall behind the pool. The first swimmers clambered onto the blocks and dived off with varying degrees of success.

The coach was right. They were pretty useless. Maybe I was being snobbish, but they weren't very good. Okay, it was the open session, but _still_. They could at least learn to dive properly.

I stepped up onto the (normal training style) blocks in front of me and dived off.

Two hundred free-to-back, I could manage.

Gods, I was unfit.

After two lengths of freestyle, my arms were beginning to ache, especially my bad (ish) shoulder.

I tumbled on the second wall and pushed off on my back.

Three metres before coming up? Pathetic, Jackson.

Eventually I finished the eight lengths of initial warm-up, and stopped to catch my breath.

My shoulder throbbed unpleasantly.

This was just embarrassing. I didn't even remember being quite this useless.

The coach's voice rang out again. "ONE HUNDRED IM****** DRILL! I WANT TO SEE GOOD DRILLS FROM ALL OF YOU! AND THAT MEANS BREATHING TO THE **FRONT** ON SINGLE-ARM FLY. YES, I'M LOOKING AT YOU, DAVID!"

I set off again, sticking to my okay-ish arm for the single-arm fly drill.

Actually, I ended up doing the four easiest drills I could remember: single arm (fly), lock-to-lock (back), arms once, kick twice (breaststroke), and catch-up for free.

I was still just about keeping up with the squad, though. If I fell behind, I'd be worse than I'd thought.

I turned to look at the coach, pulling my goggles off my eyes so that I could look at the set.

Coach Farringdon was standing on the poolside benches, presumably to hide the fact that he was about five feet and seven inches tall.

"FOUR 50s HVO******* MIDDLE TWENTY! NO SLACKING!"

Yeah, I was going to skip those out. Middle 20 could prove challenging on the whole unfit thing, and I would kick myself if I had to breathe during the sprinting distance.

I settled on subsurface sprints********, instead. Less likely to damage something.

The rest of the set was fairly uneventful. The pre-set was kick-based, which I could cope with. The actual set was only an aerobic, so it proved challenging on the fitness front, but wasn't too bad on the whole still-recovering thing.

I skipped out on relays at the end, instead doing a 400, because I felt like testing myself.

Yep. Definitely embarrassingly unfit.

I did the 100 easy cool down at the same time as everyone else, then climbed out, ensuring that I gave myself a good boost from the bottom, considering how sore my shoulder was.

The coach kept me back a little at the end. "Your technique is very good. If you train hard, you'll be in the team in no time."

I grimaced slightly, flexing that dodgy shoulder. "I'm not sure I'm really in much state to do anything that tough at the moment. It'll probably be another two or three weeks before I can really pick up the training."

The coach noticed my not-so-subtle wincing. "Shoulder bothering you?"

I nodded. "Still healing."

He whistled. "Nasty."

"Yeah, quite."

"Don't worry about it. Just keep showing your face and I'll get you to those nationals."

I smiled slightly.

Maybe.

* * *

 ***regionals: as a Brit, I don't know how the American swimming system works. Here in Britain, it goes county level, regional level, national level, international level.**

 ****set. Yeah, kinda what it sounds like. The stuff that's written on the whiteboard for you to swim.**

 *****Olympic blocks. They're 25cm taller (75cm above water level as supposed to 50), and the rest is pretty much described.**

 ******making five. Getting five metres underwater before you come up to start swimming after the wall (there's a red marker on the lane ropes).**

 *******on the top. It's a clock thing for timing: the clocks are 60-second, so you can measure your time quite accurately. On the top is probably in about 40 seconds when the hand makes it round to the top.**

 ********IM. Not a misspelling: short for Individual Medley. All the strokes in the order fly, back, breast, free.**

 *********HVO. Short for High Velocity Overload. Basically: you're not going far. Go AS FAST AS YOU CAN OR DIE. Also no breathing in that section. Asphyxiate.**

 **********subsurface sprints. Working on the underwater work. Go fast.**

 **Right, so that was a lot of lingo to end the fic with. If you have any questions, ask in the comments. There's an epilogue in which we can answer them.**

 **Please leave us a review on our last proper chapter if you stuck with us for this long and read all the way. It'd make us feel like all of this has been appreciated.**

 **I guess that's us signing off, then.**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	57. Epilogue: Percy X

**So, we're back. You're not getting rid of us just yet.**

 **Especially as we've had Grover Underwood up our sleeves since like November. (** _ **We really miss Grover, okay?)**_

 _ **But,**_ **onto the rant:**

 **Have to say, I'm feeling a bit betrayed: our last review was not even this year and it was flame (Dec 21, to be precise).**

 **But anyway. We said that we wouldn't post until we got a review, but the longer we leave it the less likely it will be that said review appears, and the fact that I wrote this chapter almost all by myself is less of an issue than the fact that I love this ending and want to share it with you guys, even if nobody reads it or nobody cares.**

 **That's all beside the point. Here is our epilogue to our enormous and somewhat terrifying story, and the part where we sign off on this tale for good.**

 **I'd like to thank anyone who does for reading all this way and beg again to just leave a review, even if you just say 'I've read it!'.**

 **StormSunfire (I mean, AHermioneH is probably kicking around somewhere.)**

 **(** _ **I am here, you know!)**_

* * *

 _Epilogue:_ Percy POV

The pool erupted with cheers as the previous heat came in to the finish, times flashing up on the electronic board in bright orange letters.

The sound around me died away quite suddenly as I stepped up to the blocks on the referee's whistle. The audience silenced abruptly. The next whistle: all eight of us clambered onto the blocks.

I took a single, deep breath. I had been training for this for so long. This was the moment in which I finally, _finally_ , reclaimed my life.

Hello? Gods? Look at me now! I achieved this without your meddling!

The starter's distortedly electronic voice sounded around the pool: _take your marks._

I closed my mind to distractions and focused on the task at hand: 400m freestyle (aka one heck of a long way).

I must've been the only person there who was swimming across different distance spans and strokes, I mused.

 _JACKSON!_ The other half of my brain yelled at me.

Yes, right. Concentrate.

The starting bleep-thing sounded; a light flashed brilliantly in my periphery. All eight of us contestants exploded off the blocks as a single entity, sound muting as I plunged into the water.

Right, okay. Time for the maths. Well, time to quadruple-check the maths. 50m pool. 400m race. That's eight lengths. Eight walls. Seven turns. One dive. One finish.

Oh, and a lot of swimming in between.

Ooh, look, there was the end of the pool.

Better turn before I crashed.

One length and one turn down, seven lengths and six turns to go.

I glanced at the coloured bars on the anti-turbulence lane ropes. Made about eight metres off that wall.

Way to go, Jackson.

 _FOCUS!_ That voice in my head really sounded way too much like Coach Farringdon.

Oh, yes. The race.

The _nationals_ race.

Did I mention that it was nationals? No? Well, it was nationals. And I was _not_ going to make a fool out of myself. Well, I didn't want to anyway.

The race continued.

Breathing pattern: check. (Yes, I can breathe underwater. Your point is? I don't cheat! Just because I can breathe underwater does not mean that I can hold my breath for any longer than any normal human being!) Five strokes, breathe. Five strokes, breathe.

Turns? Not to sound arrogant, but I totally nailed the turns.

Dive? Well, it wasn't bad. It wasn't my best ever, but considering the length of the race, I could safely say that I had enough time to catch up any distance I fell behind on the dive.

Before I knew it, it was the last 100m.

I know, I know. _You're swimming 400m, Percy! Wait until the last 50m to speed up! You won't be able to sustain it for 100m after you've swum 300m!_

Yeah, no. Wait until the last 50m and you won't make any headway. Be safe and speed up at the 300m mark.

One last turn.

Check.

50m left.

 _Sprint, Jackson_.

I wasn't looking to see the other racers. One, it slows you down. Two, I was totally terrified that they'd left me in the dust. I'd come back to swimming six months ago. That's no time at all, really.

My only focus was the stretch of blue tile that ended in that wall.

And I wanted to reach that wall as quickly as was humanly possible.

A flash of red: the ropes. 5m.

I put my head down and kicked even harder, vision blurring slightly as oxygen debt began to raise its ugly head. _No, you cannot cheat and do the final section with underwater breathing_.

My hand slammed into the timing pad on the wall with jarring force. I lifted my head, gasping for air. My legs sank towards the pool floor.

I pushed slightly away from the wall and kicked, clumsily treading water to free my hands and remove my goggles, which were pressing into my eyes so hard I thought that they might pop out of my head.

I spun my head to my left and right, trying to see any other swimmers. Zilch. Oh schist, I'd done something wrong, hadn't I, or had I beaten a world record. That was not meant to happen.

I breathed a sigh of relief as a guy's head came up about a second later, a couple of lanes over from me. He turned to look, blinking in mild surprise.

Okay, okay. I was seeded in lane seven. That probably had something to do with it. He was lane four. The spearhead formation of the head seeding meant that he had been pretty much the favourite to win, and I most certainly hadn't.

Within the next three seconds, the rest came in, in what was essentially a perfect spearhead (i.e. lane five, then lanes six and three, then two, then one and eight).

I turned again to look at the clock. The number that flashed up next to lane seven was mildly shocking.

It beat my PB by _seven_ flippin' seconds.

What? How? What?

Okay, not a _world_ record. But that _was_ a national record for my age.

I am not ashamed to say that my jaw sort of flopped open and my eyes bulged. Yes, I looked like a fish. But that was _insane_.

I obediently swam under the ropes and climbed out at the side as the referee called 'clear the pool!', still somewhat in shock.

As I got out and Coach Farringdon handed me a towel, he clapped me on the back. "Well done, kid! I wasn't sure if you were actually going to make it to _state_ level in this time, but look where you are now! Just go and swim a short cool-down, then go back over to your bench to wait for your next race. And don't be surprised if you get pulled over at the end by a scary-looking official - you see her? She's the trainer for the US squad."

I nodded dumbly, my mind squealing with delight. _US SQUAD!_

Coach grinned. "And mind that shoulder of yours. I know that it hasn't bothered you for a couple of months now, but you need to be careful. You don't want to screw it up before you go back for your second race, now, do you?"

"No, Coach."

He clapped me on the back again. "Keep it up."

I smiled wearily and went over to the warm-up pool to try and cool down. Hmm. I couldn't feel my legs. My hands were shaking.

Eh. Good race, then.

I jumped into the pool and set off slowly. Freestyle for two lengths, backstroke for two lengths. Repeat.

Excellent. I now had some feeling in my legs.

And, oh look, my hands were no longer trembling quite as much.

I went back to where I'd stowed my belongings and waited for my next race.

o0O0o

I smiled as I jumped onto the podium one last time to collect my medal for the 50m freestyle 'splash race'. "And our national champion for the 50m freestyle is Perseus Jackson!" The dude who was announcing the races flashed his teeth at me as he rested the medal around my neck.

Gods, it was heavy. But I was proud of it.

I couldn't make out their faces, but I could hear the voices of my friends cheering in the crowds. As I dismounted from the podium, I heard Coach Farringdon's shouts in the jumble of people: "Percy!" I shuffled through the numerous people, trying to spot him. When I eventually did, I saw the stern-looking lady from the US Squad was with him. "This is Margaret Brannigan from the US Squad."

She held out her hand and I took it, as I smiled nervously. "Uh, hi?"

"You gave some very impressive performances out there, Perseus."

I tried not to flinch at the use of my full name.

"You have good breath control and technique. Mr Farringdon, here, says that you have only been back in the pool for six months? And you had an injury break for six months as well?"

"Uhh, yeah. I did."

"That's very impressive, especially considering that you're not part of a competitive club." She had a clipboard perched on her arm as she said this, ticking various things off as she went.

"I was a part of a club a few years ago, but it was too expensive. My mum was single and didn't have a particularly well-paid job at the time; we couldn't really afford the membership."

US Squad Lady nodded. "I see. Either way, it's an impressive feat. You're a very talented swimmer, Perseus."

"Um, thank you."

She hit the top of her pen against the clipboard. "I shall hope to see you soon, should you get through selection."

My heart caught in my throat. "What?"

"I'll send more details through Mr Farringdon here, but for now, all you need to know is that you have a tryout with the US Squad within the next month. Goodbye, Perseus." She consulted her clipboard briefly, before walking off.

My mouth was left hanging wide open.

Coach Farringdon patted me on the back. "Good job, Percy. I'd get changed and head out, now, though. Before your friends get bored of waiting and find a way onto poolside."

I grinned at the notion. Hyper demigods running around on a slippery and crowded poolside. "Yes, Coach."

o0O0o

Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I wandered out into the reception area, which was still clogged with swimmers and supporters meeting up after nearly an entire day, before heading out to their cars and respective homes.

Some people would have one heck of a long way to travel after the weekend-long gala (i.e. one session Friday, three Saturday, two Sunday. A lot of swimming).

Oh, yeah. So would we. This competition was nearly the length of the state away.

But anyway.

I scanned faces and walked further away from the changing rooms, weaving through the throng of noisy people. I knew that Annabeth wasn't a fan of tight spaces, so guessed that they would be towards the edge of the crowd.

Well, I guessed right.

I spotted the three familiar faces a nanosecond before they saw me. Mom smiled as I locked eyes with her and rushed forwards to hug her. Annabeth was behind her, grinning, and Grover waved one of his fake crutches in the air.

Let's be honest here, after finishing my hug with Mom, I totally ignored Annabeth in favour of Grover.

Look, I'd spent two entire school years with my girlfriend. I hadn't seen Grover in _forever_.

Plus, I got the feeling that Grover might've (a) gone into a decline, or (b) piled in and hugged me anyway, whacking both me and Annabeth upside the head with a pair of crutches, if I'd hugged Annabeth before him.

"Hey, man! How are you?" I embraced him in a bro-hug.

Grover pulled himself away in a tangle of crutches. "Life is great, Percy. Look at you! National Champion!"

I grinned with him.

"High-five, dude." He lifted a hand, untangling it from the crutch. "Come on!"

I high-fived him.

Annabeth walked up behind him after we finished our high five and hugged me lightly. "Well done, Seaweed Brain."

I felt like I was floating on air. I was probably floating on adrenaline. I mean, I'd collapse as soon as we got into the car.

Plus, my medals were a little too heavy for me to really feel like floating. I felt more like I was drifting slightly but being anchored to the ground by their weight. But hey. I wasn't complaining.

I grinned like the Cheshire Cat. For once, here I was. Completely mortal.

And happy.

* * *

 **And there it is: fin.**

 **(Review? Please? Pretty pretty please?)**

' **Til next time (yes, there will (eventually) be a next time).**

 **StormSunfire and AHermioneH**


	58. Authors' Note

Hey guys,

This isn't an update. I know that a lot of reviewers have been asking if we are going to update again (the six or so guests that have asked) and the honest answer is no. We're done with this plot line and the (annoying) OCs. We're so thankful to anyone that's read this fic and finished it; stuck with it to the end (which you must have done if you are reading this). Specific shoutouts must go to NeatherStar (our first reviewer), Alicia Olivia Miraz (someone who stuck by us for a long time), Quihi (another loyal follower), howlingbean999 (who appeared at random moments and helped to encourage us) and hagbraten or Walley as we know them (who made an account to follow our fic).

Thank you so much for the wonderful following we've had, despite the fact that sometimes we did get slightly annoyed.

See you later,

AHermioneH and StormSunfire


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